You never know the lasts..I wrote about that before.. wondering if I would know the lasts as they came to pass..

I didn’t.

Surprisingly I still don’t.

I got mail for her.

Jennifer Lynn Kranz.

 

It was ironically enough from the first eye dr we saw.. the one that said we needed to take her to a specialist. .. that lead us to a MRI that then discovered the tumor that would turn our lives upside down. .. eventually ripping us apart.

Will that be the last piece of mail I get for her? The last time I see her name in my mail box?

 

How is that even possible.. my daughter. My should be almost 7 yr old. Sometimes it feels like she is being wiped off the face of this earth. She was stolen from us 8 months ago.. but somehow I feel like I lose little pieces of her every day.

I am trying to figure out a way to keep her Gilroy Gardens membership active.. So that I can scan her card and have her little face be the one that welcomes us to the park. To know that when we go there a machine is saying her name..

Jennifer

I got a email from Chuck e cheese.. well two actually. The first was maybe a month or so ago. The one yesterday was reminding me that it wasn’t too late to plan her birthday party. .. Oh how I wish that was true… It will always and forever be too late.

But a computer remembered. It found her.. and linked her and I together. .. Without thought or fear of the tears I might shed.. it remembered my daughter and it said her name.

I wish I could make it happen again every year. I know that might sound crazy.. why would I want to be reminded that she is gone? But its not that.. I look around and I see car magnets and pink bracelets all with love4jlk .. I even saw a car of somebody I don’t know that had her picture along with fluttering information taped inside… I love it..so much.. But part of me whispers this won’t last. So I try to absorb it without expecting it. To know she is remembered in all sorts of ways.. by people and by machines is priceless.

I will never need to be reminded that she is gone.. Even if it doesn’t seem real.

I know.

The email was a unexpected reminder that she isn’t forgotten outside of me. Because with every breath I take that is void of her and I will struggle to breathe.. Every heart beat is broken because without her part of its strength is lost.

For my Jonathan too. Last night I laid in bed with him. We were talking about things he might want in general and in life. I was naming all sorts of things .. silly things and real things. But he stopped me.

“No mom I don’t want that. I just want Jennifer back.”

 

“oh” I try to catch my heart and it attempts to leap out of my mouth to both shield him from this pain and to run away from it all.

“oh well why son? What is it you want back so much?”

“I just miss her. Just miss Jennifer. And I miss having a big sister”

The conversation dissolved for a few minutes. But I picked it up again.. 

“Whats something Jennifer taught you as your big sister”

And he showed me. A special little trick from her.

“You will always be able to do that Jonathan. And because of that you will always carry a piece of her with you. You can do it whern you miss her… when you need to feel her near you. You can show me and it can be a secret way of telling me you are thinking about her. Or you can keep it to yourself.. and it just be your private connection with her.”

 

He seemed to like that. As I laid there with my 5 yr old in my arms I wished.. with everything in me… to see him do that on his wedding day waiting for his bride.. And on the day he holds his child for the first time. And when I take my last breath.. I hope he finds comfort in what she taught him that he can forever do. ..

Oh and that mail from your eye doctor..

its sitting unopened in your room.

Its waiting for you baby

so much has been taken from me.. without my choice

I refuse to lose this last.

 

…until there is a cure…