Today is February 13, 2008. Kylene left us six months ago today.

What an odd paradox. Six months without her beautiful smile, her lyrical voice, her ebullient personality, seem an eternity. And yet the tragic events that took her from us sometimes seem as fresh and as painful as if they occurred yesterday. Perhaps that is because she has left such a void in our life, that the events which filled our lives with her seem the reality and the past few months just an empty void, easily forgot.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. We shall visit the site where our heart is buried, Kylene's grave, and spend some time with her. And we shall read to her a special card. We have continued to buy cards as events have passed -- her birthday, Christmas -- and read them to her on our visits. We were planning to purchase a Valentine's Day card. Then a funny thing happened. This past weekend during a visit to Jim's mother, Jim picked up a CD album that we had left there and he had been meaning to retrieve. Within that album he found a card -- an unsigned Valentine's Day card -- addressed "With Love, Daughter, On Valentine's Day." Jim's mother insists that she didn't know about it. Jim, who has been having memory problems, believes he had probably bought it last year as an extra card because he liked it and thought it would make a nice card for this year, but he's uncertain. In any case, it will be the card that we share with our daughter.

Strange things happen in this world.

From the card:

There's love in this
Valentine message
Intended just for you...
...It's a very special love that's yours
Today and all year through
And there are thoughts of everything
It means from day to day
To have the kind of Daughter
Who's special in every way.

 
~ Mom & Dad