Bobbing for Apples in our Kitchen: Trying to bring some joy to a very scary and frightful fall, a month following Christi's diagnosis with cancer (September 11, 2002).
Fall Days, October 2002Tonight will be Trick or Treat. Shayla (Cleopatra) will go with Grandma Donna and her crew again. I was really looking forward to it. Now this morning I can't believe how sad I am missing Christi. Certainly, a 12 year old wouldn't want to dress up and go trick or treating, yet I just can't let it go. In my classes, once a week, I pass around a little candy break for my students. Since the month of October, I've placed the candies inside Christi's trick or treat "pumpkin basket", the big pumpkin with her name on it. It makes me feel like Christi is there, spreading her joy and sharing candy with my students. I'm sure she'd love to do that. My students have been awesome. One stayed after class last night to thank me for sharing little bits with her about Christi and telling me she learns so much in my class, not just about how to teach reading, but about life too. It was sweet.
HAPPY TRICK or TREAT NIGHT, dear Christi. (Shayla thinks you'd want to dress up like a cat - again. I'm not so sure. I think you probably would have outgrown that, maybe......) (PIC: October 2004 at one of Christi's former teacher's homes. Christi (7) - cat, Shayla - (5) Balto.
posted by the Thomas team @ 8:13 AM
3 Comments:
Hi Angela! I'm missing Christi too! And if she is anything like my daughter (who is 12 too), then she would still want to go trick-or-treating. My daughter is going this year as some character from Harry Potter! She also still believes in Santa Claus, shockingly enough! I don't have the heart to tell her any different. I want her to enjoy being a child as long as she can! Hey, I'm struggling with even getting her to wear a bra, which she flatly is refusing to do! She thinks they are for "girly girls"! LOL!
Wendy Landers
Georgia
Missing Christi too! Knowing Christi she would have dressed up, she was just that sweet of a child! She enjoyed her childhood to the fullest, never to rush it, just to teach us all how to BASK IN THE MOMENT and ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF IT!!!
I think Christi would definitely go Trick or Treating at age 12! My students are 14, and they are extremely excited to go Trick or Treating! They grow up quickly, but not too quickly to stop enjoying the best parts of childhood. I imagine Christi very much like my students: one foot in childhood, one foot encroaching young adulthood. Halloween always feels, as you so often say, "bittersweet", like tart autumn apples. I remember your journal from 2002, with photos of Christi Trick or Treating from indoors, dressed as a witch. She was in isolation, of course, but you managed to find a creative way for her to participate in the Halloween fun. You always had special tricks of your own. The other thing that haunts me, is Christi's sculpted art, right before she left for Philly the final time. Remember her Sponge Bob? It was absolutely brilliant. I also remember, so much, her survey, and how she said she really disliked macaroni salad. I think best of all was her description of her secret dream of being an artist. She wrote about how she kept that dream really close to her heart, and thought about it in special moments. Angela, Shayne, Shayla, we miss your precious Christi too.
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