hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty four)
((she's almost a first grader))


it would be cliche for me to say something like "it's hard to believe this year has gone by so fast." or "hannah, can you believe that you are almost out of kindergarten?" like people are wont to say. or hear things like "soak it in. she'll be grown up and gone before you know it." and think "yeah, you're right" and nod my head in approval. this year has not gone by fast, though, even in hindsight. not a day of it.

i vividly remember walking hannah to her class on the first day of school. i remember what she looked like with that big backpack on walking away from my car the first time i dropped her off. i remember grilling her about her day every time i pick her up from the church after work. i remember her doing homework. i remember checking her out because she didn't "feel good". i remember her reading a bedtime story to us. her first real school year has gone by exactly as it should in exactly the right amount of time, and i am happy for that.

there aren't many silver linings to losing a kidney to a cancer that you didn't ask for, but slowing down the ever increasing pace of life has been one of them. even though i have no reason to believe otherwise, if someone says to me, "she'll be grown and gone before you know it", i cringe and hope that i am alive to see her leave. if someone tells me that she looks "so big", i nod my head and approve not because i am being considerate but because i am absolutely terrified that i will not be able to guide her or caroline through the trials of being a teenager.

god, cancer fucking sucks!!! it took a part of me. it takes bigger parts of others. the unluckiest may lose it all. it destroys or, at the very least, affects lives in the same peripherally damaging way as divorce. who knows how many grey hairs i've added to sarah's head or how many years i've shaved off her and my closest friends' lives with my inability to celebrate that i was one of "the lucky ones", instead replacing my doctor's orders to eat, drink and be merry with elephant-sized worry.

i used to dream. a lot. i never remember my dreams any more. not since last summer. why is that? i digress further.

time has slowed down significantly for me. that's for sure. i hope that it remains this way for a while. each day with the girls is one more opportunity to love them and kiss them and tickle them and then whisk them away to bed so i can watch the next to last episode of LOST.

hannah's a smart, no-longer-little girl. she was proud of herself this morning that she has received a green, smiley face every day of her kindergarten year. she should be proud.

she's ready for first grade.

yep.