Up then down

My morning routine goes a little something like this:

Feed the baby.

Put the baby on her play mat, enjoy a gummy smile or two.

Put a few toys in front of her and pop two pieces of toast into the toaster.

Wait.

Fire up the iPad, crack open a Mountain Dew and read through the obituaries.

Because that's normal (the daily reading of the obituaries part).

I think we all know I bid normal adieu 15 months and 1 day ago. Read more about that here, here, here,  and here.

Today when I reached for the iPad something was different.

I picked it up and staring back at me was this beautiful picture of Addie.

Certainly this must be a sign from my sweet, little girl (because looking for signs from your child is totally normal too). We pick up pennies on the street. We pay special attention to the skies. We relish the dreams featuring our children front and center because for that half-second we can see them, hear them, touch them again. For one brief moment, they are ours.

But I didn't intend this post to be about signs.

It's more about how something as sweet and beautiful as a picture of your child can make your heart soar and crumble at the same time.

Because that picture quickly faded to this one.

And then this one.

That's when I realized the slide show was rolling through picture by picture. In chronological order.

We received the iPad as a Christmas gift in December 2011. Addie died in March 2012. For three months there's no arguing it, that iPad was basically Addie's.

And I get reminders in the form of iPad updates all the time.

Scarlett misses you.

Scarlett is Addie's virtual horse, "purchased" the week before diagnosis.

Still listening? Pandora doesn't like playing to an empty room.

The last time we listened to Pandora was in Addie's hospital room the day before she died. According to Pandora, that was 458 days ago. Thanks. Like I needed the reminder.

But this slide show, this chronological record of events that comprised the last three months of my 9-year-old's life, really, really cut deep.

Because there we were - mugging for the camera, cracking ourselves up with the distorted pictures of ourselves, and loving every minute of it.

There was Addie on the couch. Addie by the door. Addie with Bailey. Addie with my mom. Addie with Virginia. Addie with a friend - the day before I took her to the ER.

I looked at each of those last frames carefully, searching for some trace of the monster that came in and took our daughter from us.

There was nothing.

Yet I couldn't help but look beyond the goofy smiles and think about the cancer coursing through her veins, tricking her little body to turn on itself. While oncologists can't pinpoint exactly when this seemingly perfect little girl's cells began their mutation (there is no Stage I, Stage II, Stage III, Stage IV with AML), I have to think that on that afternoon - an afternoon where two girls rode their bikes to a friend's house, lounged lazily on the grass, and returned to our house to dink around on the iPad - the cancer was there.

And that makes me sick.

So while we continued on just like everyone else, enjoying unseasonably warm weather, sorting through the past year's summer clothes, and trying on Easter outfits, we were deliciously unaware that the world that turns so slowly we can't hardly feel it, was going to turn completely upside down (for us anyway).

And sad to say, the iPad is a reminder of just how far our world has tilted.

Because Addie isn't the only one whose pictures are on it.

I see Tripp and Isaac in their brand new superhero costumes, compliments of Santa Claus the same Christmas we received the iPad. Today, Isaac's Spiderman costume is literally hanging on by a thread and Tripp's Captain America costume actually fits. The pants were at least a half-foot too long in 2011, a gross reminder that time has passed and life, no matter how painful, has continued. Kids are growing up, growing out of their clothes.

I see Tripp and Isaac recording messages to Addie in the hospital; Isaac telling her he was going to get her a pretty dinosaur for her birthday, Tripp simply saying, "I love you, Addie."

I see me in the background of those recordings with a smile on my face and hope in my heart.

I remember playing those messages back to her, hoping so desperately that she would hear them and maybe, just maybe.

I realize today I don't hardly recognize the person I once was.

That person is gone and selfish as it may seem I mourn that loss too.

Don't get me wrong. The person left in her place has good days.

There are smiles. Laughs. Superheroes.

And there are days like today.

Where my heart soars and crumbles at the same time.

A Year Ago Today Part 2

This is the second in a collection seemingly mundane events that proved that, for a time, life was deliciously normal. Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just life. Normal life. You can read the first entry here.

March 12

A year ago today I hit No. 2 on speed dial as I walked toward my van after school.

It was 4 o'clock. The bus had dropped off Addie 15 minutes earlier and I liked to think she was waiting for my call. She probably wasn't. Too busy catching up on one of the shows she'd DVR'd or fiddling with the iPad.

"Hello?" she said.

"Hey, Ad. How was your day?"

"Fine."

This is where I envision her pressing pause on the remote and humoring me with the same conversation we'd have each and every day.

"What was your favorite part?"

"Ummm," she'd pause, taking a lick of the cream filling inside her Golden Oreo. "Probably math."

"Yeah, what did you do?"

"We played this review game."

Like clockwork, I'd find myself rounding the first curve south of Eagle and I knew our conversation would soon come to an end.

"OK, Ad. I'll be home in about 15 minutes. Love you."

"Love you too."

And that was pretty much it.

Five minutes of the exact same conversation day-in and day-out.

Five minutes of nothing.

And everything.

A Year Ago Today

This is the first in a collection seemingly mundane events that proved that, for a time, life was deliciously normal. Nothing earth-shattering. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just life. Normal life.

March 11

A year ago today I taught Sunday School. It was the 3-year-old class and three students showed up. Two of the three were named Addison. I remember this because I told them how easy it was going to be for me to remember their names because I had an Addison too.

I don't remember much about the lesson. OK, I don't remember anything about the lesson. I wasn't the regular teacher. Just a sub who filled in from time to time. I do remember we played with Play-Doh. At the last minute I shoved a bunch of it into my purse because I had a sneaking suspicion the two-page leaflet I was supposed to cover wasn't exactly going to take us a whole lot of time. So we rolled rocks and boulders and pancakes and snakes. Yes, snakes.

After Sunday School it was church. Isaac came out of his classroom. Then Addie. Scott and Tripp arrived a few minutes later. We grabbed a bulletin and a seat. Like always, one on the right side, one that provided easy access to an exit in the probable event that someone would need to go pottie or take a time out.

"Can I sit with my friends?" Addie asked.

You might think I spent a whole lot of time debating this question. I didn't. I just gave one of those looks that said, "you better behave, be quiet, or else (horrors) you're going to have to come back and sit with us."

A year ago today I watched as Addie settled in next to two of her friends. I watched as one friend's older sister (the one who had been put in "charge" of the trio) gave them a look that mirrored mine.  I watched them giggle and I watched them scribble notes and pictures back and forth. I watched the older sister try to keep her composure.

And now I really want to know:  what were they giggling about?

I remember wanting to ask that day, but I didn't. Nine years old. Almost 10. Time for a little independence. Privacy. This, I thought, is just a preview of what's to come.

What's to come?

As if we had any clue.

Every once in awhile I'll come across a sheet from a
Scribble Card for Little Lutherans note pad shoved deep
into the pockets of the diaper bag or hidden at the
bottom of one of Addie's drawers.