BFF!

I was thinking of all the things you didn't get to do. Some things were just too hard for you, some things would have put you in the spotlight you no longer sought, something you never shunned before the attack. It changed so many things, but mostly it changed the joy in which you moved through life. It limited your participation in what should have been your rights of passage as a teenager. What I regret most of all is that many things were just thwarted at the tender, vulnerable age of seventeen for you. Even as you matured, that young woman never got to experience what by rights was yours to have in all it's glory and pain, falling in and out of love, becoming a race car designer, writing for Saturday Night Live, going to MIT, making mistakes of your own, traveling, and following your dreams.
I was listing the things I had experienced and ached for your having missed out on many of them, good or bad, and I was thinking that you never got to be in a friend's wedding and then, a Kennasent moment,  you smacked me upside the head and the picture of you and Cheryl emerged in my mind. Of course you got to be in a wedding, your "Aunt Cheble's", my best friend, your Godmother. I was the Matron of Honor but you were the Maid of Honor. And you did it so well. Just a few years ago you said that you were glad you were only in her wedding because it was so special for all of us, going to San Francisco to pick out dresses, practicing the high heel walk, and getting our hair and makeup done. The morning of the wedding when we were getting your hair done, you said, "Just remember, I can't be prettier than the bride!" And when you saw Cheryl in her dress, you said, almost with relief, "Oh, good, she looks so beautiful!" (Like there was any doubt!)
Remember when the furnace blew up on me? You and I were home alone, your Dad and Kameron were in Sacramento. The pilot light had blown out so I called your Dad and he told me how to light it, but he told me the steps in the opposite order and when I lit the match, the flame whoosed up and out over my hand, up my arms and neck and into my face. I was going into shock from the severity of the burns but felt no pain. I called Cheryl and she didn't hesitate, she just shoveled out her car and showed up, messy hair, no contacts, just her big glasses and her jammies and boots. She quickly wrapped you up, wrapped me up and took us to the hospital at 3:00 in the morning. There I sat with signed hair, no eyebrows or lashes, huge blisters all over, all that should have been frightening to a two and a half year old. You quietly sat there next to my gurney for a few minutes, (there we were again, baby girl, in the Mammoth Hospital on a gurney together!) looking at us and then, from behind your hand so others would not hear, you whispered, "Aunt Cheble, you don't look so good right now!" She barely glanced at you while flipping through the pages of the magazine she was reading with that look she had reserved just for her sardonic little goddaughter, and without blinking an eye said, "Really, Kenna? Have you looked at your mother?" To which you replied quite logically, "Yes, but she had a heater blow up on her, Aunt Cheble!"
How I loved watching your interactions over the years. You were the daughter she never had and she was the Aunt who spoiled you rotten! Maybe that's why you called it the "perfect relationship".

So many people loved and adored you and always will! We will forever miss being "the birthday girls" with you. Happy Peaceful Birthday, Sweet Girl!