A Song for Addie

This past week was a hard one, I heard that some family friends lost their daughter in a car accident and another one was in the hospital in Salt Lake. There were a lot of tears, a lot of stress, and a lot of prayers, and some amazing moments where I felt so close to God.

There is so much about life I don't understand. I felt myself shaken to the very core this week remembering a little girl I used to baby sit, who used to come to my house and play with my little sister. Things that you think are normal and will never change. Nobody should have to lose a child right? Its never expected or planned for or wanted, and what do you say to someone when it happens, especially when you are so close to tears yourself?

So, here is an email I sent to someone filled with my memories of Addie, including a song I wrote for her on Tuesday night when I got the news. Its my way of processing this grief; finding solace in my own eternal family, a loving Heavenly Father who created a perfect plan, and a Savior who loved us all enough to take on all this grief through His Atonement.

I don't really have a lot of specific memories of Addie, just an overall feeling of who she is. I always felt like I kind of identified with Addie, we were both the second oldest, and even though our personalities were very different we were both a little stubborn and sassy, and at times, ready to be a little adult and mom's helper.
Addie was a chubby cheeked little girl with bright blue eyes. Whenever she was about to do something she knew she shouldn't, like take the last of the popcorn while watching a movie, she'd give you this mischievous grin as if waiting to see how far you'd let her go before saying something, which usually resulted in my attacking her in tickles.

When I saw her at Christmas, I couldn't get over how grown up she was getting. She and her sister M.E. were helping their mom get dinner ready, she had this new hair cut, and she looked like a little miniature of her mother. She tried to pretend like she didn't know who I was, averting her gaze whenever she walked past me with a huge grin on her face. I finally grabbed her and hugged her and told her she better remember me, and told her she was getting so grown up. As we were leaving she said, "good bye stranger," and laughed so hard at her little joke.
I have to say that when I heard the news about the accident, I was of course in shock, and I sat down and wrote this song for her. Its my way of remembering Addie, and remembering that this life is so short, mortality is but an instant, even though it might not feel like it right now, but someday Addie will be with her family again.

Is this where your music ends;
In the places that sorrow can send?
I feel swallowed up in grief,
Where is the cold night air?
Why can't it bring me sweet relief?

Trapped for a moment in reality-
There is a song I cannot sing.
Life flies by in seconds,
Surrounded by eternity.

There is a sweet face,
Laughter that has left this place.
Ringing down an echoed hall,
To a new place,
Where another heart calls.

In the morning of that brighter day,
This instant can just fade away.
What can love and laughter bring to me;
Some solace for your family?
Or, to remember, there is beauty in Eternity.