Because next Thursday will mark the tenth anniversary of Catherine’s death, Ellen has asked if I have any reflections on the occasion.
I have no shortage of reflections. With my office closed by the pandemic, I have spent the last year working from the attic in our home. This space used to be Catherine’s private spot. Here, she created a school for her dolls and a clubhouse for her friends. Every morning, my day starts with reminders of Catherine’s creative spirit. On the old clubhouse, a sign in Catherine’s handwriting is still taped to the door. “If you would like to be a member of Club Flowery Hearts,” it says, “please knock three times and say your name. If no one answers, come back later.”
These sights fill me with endless reflections. Each morning, I see Catherine’s face as an
8-year-old. And I try to imagine how she would have looked as an 18-year-old about to graduate from high school with her friends. Catherine is never far away.
When it comes to expressing our feelings for Catherine on this anniversary, I can do no better than these words written in July 2011:
We are loving her with the same hearts that loved her from the moment of her birth to the moment when we placed our last kisses on her cheek.
We are loving the people that she loved.
We are fighting the disease that killed her.
We are doing our best to live our lives as witnesses to the amazing, confounding spirit that dropped into our family -- and will never leave.
