Empty Space

I might not write about Jack every time, but Jack is a part of our lives every day.

There are so many things that are "Jack" to me. That make me think of him every time I see them. Jewelry I wear every day. His blue blanket I sleep with at night. Butterflies. Songs on the radio. All of these are pretty obvious.

And then there's some that aren't so obvious to everyone else.

When Jack was in CHoP we made friends with a really sweet woman who worked there. She cleaned the NICU and was there all the time, walking through, picking up, and always stopped to talk. Always had a kind word, a smile, a story about her own family. She loved Jack (and honestly, she really loved PJ... she just thought he was so funny). The day Jack died she was the one person we had paged so we could say goodbye to her before we left.

Her name was Daisy. She talked to me one day for a long time about perfume, how much she loved perfume. I told her there was a shop right near our hotel and the whole window was filled with bottles of the new Marc Jacobs perfume called - Daisy. She said she had seen it and was so excited to try it. I told her the bottles were beautiful, and every day that I walked past the window I thought of her.

A few months after Jack died I was in Sephora and there it was.... the perfume. Daisy. I bought it without even smelling it, brought it home, and have sprayed a tiny bit on every day since. It is "Jack" to me. It's like bringing him with me. Every morning I put it on and say "Come on Jack, let's go. We've got a big day."

And then there's the empty space.

My mom was the one to say it first, I think. That the girls almost never sit right next to each other. You can try and put them next to each other and they instantly wiggle away. They always leave a space in between them, always.

She said it's the spot where Jack sits.