Things I Never Thought I Could Do

When you become a mom your world is suddenly populated not only by your own small ones, but by the small people who are close to them as well. You come to love these children of others by virtue of watching them grow.  One little girl with white blond hair, a finely chiseled nose, and a love for Disney's Pocahontas inspired deep affection within my heart.  I was crazy for her from the very first time I watched her for her mother when she was just a couple months old.

It was Thanksgiving when we got word just how sick she was.  She and my daughter were twelve years old.  The news was not encouraging, and I am sure if I had allowed myself to search the internet, the words I would have found would have devastated me.  She was a child; I never thought I could watch while a disease destroyed a child's health.

You do what you have to do;  what I had to do was be the grown up. I had to provide wonderful, loving memories for my child and her friend.  I had to let her mom know that the family was surrounded by the love of friends who intended to see them through.  I had to counter pain with pleasure in the form of party games, manicures, and art projects conducted in the sterile environment of the hospital. I had to remain positive even when I thought I could not.

There is a veil that curtains the eyes of someone who is about to die.  I have seen it in the eyes of too many people I love. When you look into it you can no longer deny that there is a distance between you two--that they are traveling to a place that you have not been and can not yet go. When I saw this veil in her eyes, it knocked the wind out of me.

I never thought that I could let such a sweet friend, a mere child, go;  but you do what you have to do even when you thought you could not.





The Folk Journaling Prompt encourages a piece on a time you did something you thought you could not do.  It has been ten years now since we made those "party van" trips to Children's Mercy.  I miss our friend still.  With each new milestone she should have had, but missed, my heart aches for her.  This piece was written with love and admiration for a little girl I once knew.