Brave

I swore I smelled her shampoo in the stairwell at work one day and it brought me to tears.

I try really hard to be brave.  Certain things, ordinary things - birthday parties and lavender bushes, dry rice cereal and Disney princesses - spin her from the back of my mind squarely to the front.  At the pool I wonder about how her hair might have dried after swimming all day.  Cooking dinner I think about what she might have liked to eat.  Memories are triggered by tunes from tiny plastic toys that now entertain her brothers. 

Playing "House" with Tucker a few nights ago, he said:  I'm gonna be the big brother and you will be the Daddy.  Mama Jenni can be the Mama, but who will be the sister?
Talk about breaking the brave front.

I don't feel sorry for myself that Celia died.  Except for when I do.
Some things make staying strong especially hard - Tucker asking me to point to heaven on his globe (he decided, after I told him we couldn't find it on the map and after his own careful scan of continents and seas, heaven was in Monrovia, Liberia), talk of kindergarten and little league and family pictures, and all the redheaded girls I seem to see everywhere (seriously, who knew there were so many little reds running around Columbus!)

Ordinary things bring Celia to mind, as do previews for the newest Disney Movie, a film about a headstrong Scottish princess with untamable red ringlets.  There are obvious parallels to be drawn, but I haven't seen the movie.
I'm not sure I'm brave enough.
Andy