100 pages later

You know what's breaking my heart about this book? Two things:

1. The image the author keeps evoking of the healthy happy toddler before she gets sick. Somehow the experience and expectation of perfection make the ensuing tragedy far worse. I felt like that. We all expect to have a perfect, healthy child. It never occurred to me that anything would or could be wrong. Remembering the first half of my pregnancy, when my most serious concerns were about eating properly and choosing nursery themes, twists a knife in my heart.
   
2. The images of each milestone she reaches. When Kate goes on her first date, Mom finds Dad crying in the kitchen. "I never thought she'd live long enough for me to have this memory," he said. Each milestone is bittersweet not because of a loss of times past but because of a tacit acknowledgement that all is not as it should be, nothing is a given. Adjusted expectations.