I took the angel, but didn't mean to...

I didn't realize that I took the angel.

When we broke up in May, part of the two full carloads of things I packed to take from his house was a box of what I thought were just my Christmas ornaments. Most of the ornaments I have were given to me by my sister over the years and have sentimental value, so I wanted to be sure I didn't lose them. A few others I bought in my single years at the local drugstore when I was first living on my own all those many years ago in Florida. Another one or two, I bought when he and I were together in Leavenworth or elsewhere--moose or bear things that reflected our shared joy of the outdoors.

I was in such a pained and traumatized emotional state that day when I packed all of my things, that I didn't do any more than quickly lift the lid of a single box, see that the plastic poinsettia flowers I'd bought at Michael's were in there, and called it good.

Today that one box has been calling to me from the closet. Calling like Poe's Telltale Heart.

I knew (from an email from him) that he and the kids and his parents decorated the tree on Wednesday or Thursday last week. It saddened me greatly to not be there for it.

This morning I woke up to the painful memory of having bought a set of four little ornaments a few years ago in Leavenworth for us and with great love. Each ornament was inscribed with one of our names. I was especially pleased with the purchase because his oldest daughter has a somewhat unusual name and stated often that personalized items were never made with her name on them. But I had found a set of matching ornaments for the four of us! A family, or so I thought in my heart--represented by those matching ornaments.

I also woke this morning tormented with the memory of the set box from Costco that his youngest daughter gave me as a gift now three Christmases ago, I think it was. It was a set of four picture frame ornaments, very pretty, in the shape of snowflakes. I worked hard to select pictures, cut them to size, and fit them into the frames. I think I only managed to get three of us framed, though I can't remember which one of us was still yet to be done.

I awoke this morning to the painful thought that both of those special ornament sets were probably still at his house. That they and he would have likely encountered them as they decorated the tree last week. As I lay there in bed in my pain, I imagined him coming across the little ornament with my name on it--and throwing it in the trash. :( I hate to think of what happened to the photo frame ornaments. They were such a special gift from his younger daughter. At the time I don't think I was able to express enough to her what a thoughtful gift they were. I remember that at the time I was in a state of being overwhelmed at trying to fit in as a stepmother. All the responsibility. All the emotion. All the challenges. All the grieving and coming to terms with other dreams lost. All the uncertainty. All the still-present loneliness. The child did a sweet thing to try to please me and I think that I failed to reassure her of just how much she had.

I often failed, these last 4-1/2 years. Not that I didn't try. I surely did. Tried very very hard. But also failed frequently. It's painful to acknowledge that. Maybe more so because my partner so often seemed to focus on my failures... instead of on my successes... or even just on my trying. :( So, in that way he failed, too. WE failed. We failed his kids. And we failed each other.

So, back to the angel. I remember the day when he and I bought it together. I remember each of the maybe two, maybe three?, Christmases after that that we put the angel up atop their usually extremely tall tree in the living room. It required a tall ladder to get her up there. And usually a restringing of part or all of the tree lights so that the light plugs were going in the right direction.

She's fairly simple, but amazingly pretty somehow for being from K-Mart. She fit us well, he and I and the girls, her little gold beaded strands decorating her red dress so that she looked sophisticated and even elegant... but she was from K-Mart so she was budget and realistic, which matched our shared values.

I didn't realize that I took her. I didn't mean to take her. At least, I didn't think I did. Though maybe part of me did, knowing at that time last year that we were already pretty deep in crisis, and that if we didn't make it, if we couldn't figure out how to work out our difficulties, he would move on quickly, and me not wanting that special part of our relationship to be transferred on to some new woman. She (the angel) and the emotion behind her -- when we bought her together, and each time we four put her atop the tree -- was that special to me, that I didn't want it easily transferred over to someone else. It was our special thing. Our angel. Our star of hope atop our attempt-to-merge-as-a-stepfamily tree.

But, these months later--and all that transpired between us in the meantime--I didn't realize that I'd taken her. Not until just now tonight when I finally gave in to the calling of the Telltale Heart and pulled the box down from the closet. I found her quickly and to my chagrin... under all those fake pointsettia flowers.

Here she is, a picture from two Christmases ago, a picture that I used as part of a special book I spent hours to make up and to have printed as a tribute to our memories thus far of us as a family.

I can only now imagine how it felt, for the three of them, to not find her in amongst the remaining boxes of Christmas decorations. :( It was probably painful to them, but I didn't mean for it to be. :(