This morning I was writing a request letter to a business to request a sponsorship for our Alex's Lemonade Stand coming up next month. I was writing about Brinley, her story, and I was sitting directly across from my kitchen window. As I was telling her story, I could see her outside playing and was overcome with a desire to tell them more than was appropriate. There was so much I wanted to say, to write, and so I decided I would add it here instead. Here is what I would have liked to add...

"At this very moment I am looking at her play outside. She is smiling. Her hair is long and curled. She has a flower crown around her head because she is the princess in the game her and her sister Jade are playing. She is swinging on the swing set and facing me but she cannot see me watching her. When she smiles her cheeks puff out and her eyes squint. She has a high dimple on one of her cheeks. I love her smile. She looks like she could be in a movie. Everything seems in slow motion. The tears well up in my eyes, I am not quite sure why. Partly because I remember her bald little head just trying to feel good by swinging on that same swing set. Partly because the future will always be unsure, I will always wonder if the cancer will come back. Partly because her happiness is so beautiful to me. Partly because of where she has been, and where she is now. Mainly because she is my child, and my love for my children is so uncontrollable it makes me cry. Uncontrollable to the point I would die for any one of them in a heartbeat, without a second thought.

I wonder for a moment what it would be like if the cancer had won. I imagine her disappearing in the swing, the joy I was experiencing at that moment disappearing because we had lost her, and could no longer experience these "mortal" joys with her. I wonder if you will feel this with me as you decide whether or not to donate or become a sponsor. It felt so hollow, so empty. Jade outside playing alone, missing her sister, crying for her in the night. I wondered how any family could possibly move on. I am overwhelmed with immense gratitude that she is still here, swinging on the swing, and desperate sorrow for anyone who does not share the same outcome as us. And I wonder how in the world I can give you a picture of this moment. I only wish I could send it in this letter somehow so you could feel it when you read these words, how desperately I would like to give that to you. I beg you to help us raise this money, help fund this research that is so unfairly underfunded. I beg you to care about this. I beg you."

That's what I wanted to write.