Things that make me smile

I've just stumbled back over from my nieces six year old birthday sleepover where my daughter, truly my own, fell asleep at 9 and my niece, truly her mother's, is still awake. The night had a surreal quality to it as we did make up and hair and helped the girls into their princess nightgowns for runway walks. They were just so excited. They had so much fun I couldn't help but smile as I watched them and played with them. At one point, I caught a glimpse into the kitchen of a piece of my nieces art work, sweet and childlike and immortalized forever on the kitchen wall. My first thought, even in the midst of the fashion chaos, was of Sully and all of his artwork that our kitchen walls and refrigerator door would never know. It surprises me how grief can show up anywhere, at any time, even when I'm surrounded by so much happy energy. I look back to the girls wanting to be drawn back into their innocent fun.

My brother-in-law gave us a book for Sully. He had planned on giving it to him himself when he returned from a business trip but he didn't get a chance to. I read it this afternoon for the first time along with a letter to us from him. I love that Sully's name is in the title: Sully the Seal and Ally the Cat. Seeing his name makes me smile. The Seal is named after the bay he is found in, Sullivan Bay, and I wonder if that is a real place and if we could visit it. Perhaps we could make it one of our "Sully Adventures". Brad wants to have these with the kids for years to come in honor of our boy.

What else makes me smile these days? Polly Wolly Doodle sung by Zane. He is the one who gave us back our first real laughter just yesterday. Riding in the car the Burl Ives version of this song came on and Zane started singing it all crazy and with a funny voice, and I found myself laughing, and then Brad started, and then we were all three just really laughing. It felt so good to really laugh, not just courtesy laugh or smile because you know it's the appropriate response. What a gift from our boy Zane.

And the playground, that always makes me smile for real. Making calls and plans for it gives me something to do that is meaningful to me. I'm amazed that $20,000 has been given for Sully's place so far - what love and generosity! And it only continues. Friends have set into motion a fund raiser here in the community for the playground. On April 12th from 3-6 there will be an open gym at JWTumbles where all proceeds will go to help build the playground. What an amazing community that has rallied and continues to rally behind us with such incredible support! How could I not smile at that?


"It won't hurt so much always, Anne."
"The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all else, Marilla."
"Oh, everybody has been so dear and good and lovely to me, Marilla. I'm not ungrateful-and perhaps-when this horrible ache grows a little less-I'll find that I can go on living."
"Anne found that she could go on living; the day came when she even smiled again...But there was something in the smile that had never been in Anne's smile before and would never be absent from it again."

Anne's House of Dreams of the Anne of Green Gables Series
L.M. Montgomery