What would tomorrow bring if life could be the way we want it.

First, Mari would be here. She would never have gotten sick to begin with. She would have stayed perfectly healthy.

She would be laughing, and playing, and simply being Mari. She would watch one of her favorite shows or one of her favorite movies and then start to flap her arms in excitement because she is just so darn excited she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

She would still be here to let us know when she is hungry by saying “Eat Please” or when she was thirsty for strawberry milk and say “Milk Please” or if she was just plain flat thirsty by saying “Juice Please”. If she wanted to have a snack she would say “Cookie Please” or “Ice Cream Please” or “Cracker Please”. She just had so many different ways to let us know that she wanted something to eat to even just grabbing your hand and DRAGGING you to the pantry or the refrigerator to take you to what she wanted NOW!! I sit here thinking of her doing that and it puts a smile on my face.

If life was the way we want it Mari would be here to tuck her in bed every night and her to say “Bear, Bear” and will not stop until you get her favorite white bear that lights up to sleep with at night. Or she knows that it is bedtime and we are trying to put her in her bedroom and she goes running off to the family room with us chasing after her and yelling at her to get back here because what she was playing with in the family room and wants to continue to play with it in bed.

If things were the way we want it then she would be in school right now. I would forget most mornings to put her harness on her for her school bus to go to school. She would be gone during the day but would be back home by 3pm every day. She would be there with smiles on. She would be so excited to be home. The bus driver would tell me how they got stuck in traffic and Mari would throw a fit because the bus was not moving. She would do this if Keith or I would get stuck in a traffic jam and she felt she was done sitting in the car. She wanted the vehicle to be moving at all times. Or if we forgot something at home and had to temporarily turn back around to go back and get it. Boy you would think that Mari’s world just came to a crashing halt because she thought we were not going bye bye after all. She just loved her outings away from home.

We would go into a store and pass something that she wanted, like a Dora toy, or a Cars toy, or a Backyardigans toy, and if we did not let her have it, boy we did not hear the end of it. She knew exactly where the video section or the book section in the store was as well. If we did not stop and let her pick out a video or book then she let us know at the top of her lungs. The amazing thing is that if she had her way, we would have at least 30 copies of the exact same book or the exact same video. All she knew is that each time she saw one of her favorite things in the store she wanted it each and every time no matter what and even though she already had it at home. To her it was already hers and wanted to play with it now. We were always so sneaky when it came to checkout time because we always told the cashier to hide it behind the counter as we were not going to buy the same things over and over again.

There are just so many things that would continue to happen if things were the way we wanted because ultimately that would mean that Mari would still be here with us.

I remember my mom used to always ask me as a little girl, “Does it hurt to want?” I am sure all of your parents have said this to you at one time or another. My answer had almost always been no because it doesn’t hurt to want. For the first time in my life I can now answer that it really does hurt. When I was a kid she would have said, “Well, I would quit wanting then if it hurts.” Today would be different. Even though it hurts to want, I keep wanting anyway because I just love her so much even though I know what I want will never happen.