Mari was and will always be remembered for her eXtraordinary personality.

I know that technically eXtraordinary doesn’t start with an X but not a single word in the dictionary I found could be used to describe Mari. So I decided to be creative like we used to do on road trips when I was a kid. We’d play the alphabet game and because it was next to impossible to find words that started with an X so we were allowed to use a license plate if it had one or if the second letter, like eXit, could be used.

So back to why Mari was an eXtraordinary little girl. It’s because her infectious personality rubbed off on everyone. Whether we were at home, at someone else’s house or even in a store, Mari knew how to make her presence known.

Was that always a good thing? No. Like when she had a meltdown in Best Buy because I wouldn’t let her get the same Dora DVD that she already owned so she threw herself flat on the floor. I had to fireman’s carry her to the front of the store. I’m sure I received many looks because Mari looked like your typical 8 y/o little girl. So she was judged instead of stopping to wonder if maybe she wasn’t a typical little girl. But that’s okay.

For me she wasn’t typical but instead an eXtraordinary girl because she taught me that she was perfect just the way she was. To not judge a book by that outside cover but to look inside at the angelic little girl she was. How many of us can say that you’ve impacted someone’s life so much that they decide to focus their career as a result of this person’s life. That was Mari. Just typing this brings a big ol’ smile to my face. Thank you Mari for everything. You’ve taught us all so much.