When talking about what happened to Allie, I choose to say, “I have a daughter that died.” I don’t say, “I lost a daughter.” There is a reason for this. I lost Allie once, but it wasn’t to brain cancer. I lost her at Chuck E. Cheese.
I often wonder how I got to this place. This was not supposed to be my life. September is upon us, and I should be getting Allie ready for her last year of preschool. I should be buying her a backpack and meeting her new teacher. I should be making plans for her 5th birthday party. Or at least that’s what I thought I would be doing. So how in the world did I get here?
Anyone that has had a child die would agree that celebrations can be very hard. It’s difficult to enjoy such events when you know that your child will never have another birthday or Christmas morning. We’ve made it through a year of these dates since Allie has died. Each one is a challenge, but we’ve completely changed our traditions and survived. But there is one date that we skipped entirely this year. That date is our wedding anniversary.
It has been just over a year since Allie died from gliomatosis cerebri. We have tried our best to be open about our journey. We are fortunate to have family and friends that take an interest in how we are doing, and they understand that it continues to be a great struggle to function daily without Allie. People are curious, and we get all types of questions about how things are at home. When asked, I have always tried my best to answer these questions honestly and openly. Here are the three questions that seem to come up the most often. Some of you know these answers already, but others may have wondered the same things.