Looking In

Note: This is the seventh update I made to Addison's CarePages site. By now she'd been gone four days and I was still here, desperately searching for traces of her. I continue to do that today. Some days I'm lucky enough to find something new. Others, I'll simply pull the Valentine out of her backpack and remember a Wednesday way back when she made it.

Posted Mar 30, 2012 8:14am

These days, I find myself wanting to hold on to every piece of my dear, sweet Addison. That means I've done something mothers really aren't supposed to do. I've started snooping around her room.

And really, what I've found is a window to who my daughter really was.

A journal that details the highlights of a 9 year old's life. "We had basketball practice. My dad's the coach. My number is #1." "It is starting to kinda snow. Yey! I can't wait to build snow forts!" "We have our gingerbread house making tomorrow. Mom is coming. We bought LOTS of candy. We will have so much fun." "We went to the Humane Society 2-day. We played with a dog named Case."

Such joy and excitement for life's simple things. Things that, at the time, seemed so small, but in reality were huge in this little girl's life.

Her reading and language notebooks. One assignment asked students to write about their favorite place. Addison described the cabin. Another asked them to list three things they would wish for if they had the chance. Here's Addison's list:

1. A pot of gold (she was human, you know)
2. A fat hamster
3. For all shelter animals to find a home

Even though it will be difficult to collect her belongings from school, I can't wait to get my hands on more of her writing.

A valentine tucked deep inside her backpack. It was addressed to me and arrived a month and a half late. Somehow in the hustle and bustle of life, that Valentine never made it to my hands. My guess is she made it at BeLoved, the Wednesday night church group she attended.

Wednesdays were always tricky for us. After picking her up at church, we would race home for a quick dinner and then rush off to piano lessons. By the time we got home, the Valentine had long been forgotten. That's OK. I've been pleading for a sign. Maybe this was it.