Ok...I promise that my blogs will get lighter...these are blogs from 2008 when Brandi was dying and I put them on the Newark Advocate Website.

Here in 2010 I am much more political in my blogging, way too emotional in doing so and learning from my fellow "pro" bloggers, including Mr. Gill (knapsack)in getting my point across without snide comments...but for know, back to 2008:

Death is knocking Posted 8/14/2008 11:12 PM EDT on newarkadvocate.com

I don't know when exactly it started. At conception I think. One day 26 years ago I was handed the privilege, the responsibility and the worst heartbreak I would ever know or experience. It came in a package that weighed 6 lbs. 8 ozs and was 20 inches long. I was handed a gift that I had zero experience in. My fear was greater than my understanding of what would become the Main Event of my life. I took that package home, looked her right in the eyes and said "here we go Baby". It's me and you and for better or worse I am your mama. She looked back at me and gave me every ounce of trust and love, pure and innocent, that I have ever or will ever experience.

 Lurking just outside was a dark shadow, always there, patient and waiting, bidding his time. In fact waiting long enough to ensure the reality of what was next would be excruciating. She started out with a bright, big future that took it's first blow at the ripe old age of 6 months. "Why can't she sit up?" I asked the doctor. He didn't look me in the eyes, but sent me to Columbus were a doctor said bluntly...she has Cerebral Palsy. I began to spin with questions...what does that mean? Will she walk or talk? Is it fatal? How, what, why? I was bluntly advised there is no crystal ball and no answers. Just watch her grow and the answers will unfold in front of you.

I grieved. I grieved every missed target she should have hit, yet celebrated the ones she achieved in her own time. She did walk, first with a walker, then hand crutches. She did talk....A LOT! She forever twisted clichéd phrases and made them all so funny. I watched as her confidence grew. She graduated Newark High School, special education. She worked - trying out at many mainstream places to finally land at LICCO where she had peers and a great staff that understood and loved someone who sometimes needed a push, sometimes needed heard, sometimes was cranky, sometimes funny.

Then the shadow made it's way into the house. It began to show itself in missteps, forgotten days, physical sickness. Crazy like, we began a two year search for this shadow. Last October we learned her early diagnosis was or could have been wrong. That the shadow of Death that was always lurking was real and going to finish it's business with her. It has a name. Leukodystrophy. Nothing we can do or say will change this path she is on. The end is going to be much much worse than the beginning. Again - there is no crystal ball. There are no absolute answers. Just watch her die and the answers will unfold in front of you we are told.

We are nearing the end of the battle of her life on earth, but she is ever closer to her final destination. Her perfect healing. Her absolute joy in going Home. And probably just a little "snarkiness" for being the first one there! That's just her style.

She can't talk now but she can still look at me with absolute trust and love. And I can look back into her eyes and know that we had a great time, she and I. Short and sweet, just like her.