A Year

Mary Margaret McDonald 

March 3, 1994 - February 15, 2014

So now it's been a year. A year is significant. We've gone through everything once. Not sure why anyone thinks that makes things easier, but we have survived an entire year. Though we are cocooning a bit, we thank you for the calls, texts, notes, and everything. So many of you - both friends and strangers - have been with us every step of this journey. It really helps, even if we don't tell you often enough

It doesn't feel like a year. It feels like a minute,and it feels like a lifetime.

I know in many cultures there are rituals and significance to the one year anniversary of a death. None of those apply to me, but I cannot deny the significance of this day.

Something that has been of great comfort to all of us in the past year is the way Maggie lived her life. She lived every minute of her almost 20 years on this Earth. We have focused on that and laugh remembering her antics. She was the brightest light in all of our lives.

Today is different. Today it's all about when that light went out. It was the hardest 36 hours of our lives. But of course it didn't go out completely. Even as we were there with her in the ICU there was laughter and light. Maggie had too much vivacity to have her light extinguished.

It shines on.

Oh! do we ever miss her.