Looking Back

So did Uncle D do a good job on Catie's video or what? The music is perfect -- all music she liked -- I can still hear her in the backseat singing This is My Father's World, only she said "fadder" instead of "father," so she sounded like she was in the mob or something. =) I honestly don't know how Uncle D got that put together in the amount of time that he did. The stack of pictures that we gave him was INSANE and most had to be scanned in because just before Catie died, my old computer crashed and all my pictures were on it. The first time I watched it, I was simply amazed -- he totally captured Catie in it and I felt like it was an accurate picture of how she lived. The smiles... the hands in paint (or purple sand or flour)... hooked up to chemo in the toddler infusion chairs watching "her show" on the little televisions at the clinic... sound asleep in her hospital bed... dressed up or wearing sunglasses... I remember the circumstances of most every picture there... I may not be able to tell you the date or the month or the year, but I can remember what we were doing. There is one where she is sound asleep in an wagon hooked up to her IV. That night the hospital was really full. We didn't get a room until after 8:00 and there was no bed to put in the room until after 10:30. I love the one where she is in a hospital gown, has on chemo gloves, and her arms are thrown up in the air. She looks so happy in that picture. In spite of all that went on, we really did have some fun at the hospital. There are a couple of Catie, Aunt NikNik, and me... one w/ a nutcracker at a Lighthouse Christmas party and one of the 3 of us touching our noses with our tongues (must be a family trait). I love those 2 pictures. The tongue one was taken as we waited for Catie to go back for her 3rd craniotomy. Immediately after it was taken, Dr. Hudgins walked through the curtain (he had just finished operating on Baby Noor -- remember that?). Catie asked him if he could do that? I remember the funny look on his face as he tried to touch his tongue to his nose... You've got to love a neurosurgeon who will be silly with his patients in between serious surgeries in the depths of children's brains and spinal cords... The ones with the full head of hair get me every time right now... Especially those after we started chemo back b/c I remember just waiting on it to fall out... The video clip in the middle is from her 2nd birthday. We were partying big b/c we didn't get to for her first birthday. She'd just opened her chair from Lisa and Dennis and she was so funny. The chair is the one we take Izzy's picture in each month.

This time last year was GREAT... we hit a minor bump w/ something crazy w/ a lymph node in her neck. It had to be removed, but ended up being ok. She was going to preschool and loving it and we were getting ready to go to Disney on her Make-A-Wish trip. We had no idea what was lurking a few weeks away... It was probably the most carefree time we knew... the chemo was easy, she was doing more things like a "normal kid" than ever before.... boy am I thankful for that time.

This is the time of year we normally started planning her birthday party, what she wanted the theme to be... It's hard to fathom that she would have been 5 in 6 weeks.
It's still hard to believe she's gone.