This is a draft post from Shannon – posted by her mom, Gretchen

The nights we held vigil for Alicia were outside of time. Our face were wrapped in our own cocoon of blue light, scanning endlessly through mindless reading that never truly took our minds far from where our hearts lay just a few dozen feet down the corridor. Here and there, two or three voices huddled outside the light, whispering about eternal questions. There were no answers.Apr 2010 026

Night after night we held these vigils; sometimes switching in to sit next to Alicia. We either read to her quietly from her favorite book To Kill a Mockingbird,  or to talk just quietly to her and hold her in our heart as we shared what was most important to us.

The irony from these days is that the most profound things ended up being the most simplistic. The iPad was brand spanking new in in the days (we are taking original version, no selfies with this bad boy. Alicia was so tickled that not only had she lived to see one, but she had also lived to see several of her friends buy them (Peter and I adopted unusually early on this one and and I will never regret it.)

I showed Alicia how to play Plant Vs Zombies. Forever after, I loved playing it too, knowing my fingers were tapping the same places