I'm going to be a little vague with names here because so many people know about this story that I don't want this post accidentally Googled.

Anyway... the 4 year old daughter of my sister's best friend from high school is ... as we speak ... having a heart transplant.

I say my sister's best friend from high school just as a way to describe the mother because she really was a lot more than that. I guess you can say my sis went thru a lot of "best friends" before she got a permanent one back in the day but N and my sis have been friends since before N could really even talk. Seriously... when she was a toddler she couldn't even say my sister's name correctly.

She and her sister, who was in my class and also a very good friend, lived three doors down from us until about junior high when their parents got divorced.

Its so weird to think of now ... the little girl who couldn't say my sister's name, who played slip and slide in our front yard, who went to Disney with us on spring break, who hung out at our house constantly when her parents got divorced, who ate strawberry Blizzards with my sister, who made fun of me and my boyfriends... she grew up to be the mother of a little girl who needed a heart transplant. All of those memories are so clear in my mind as if they happened yesterday. N was as much in my life as in anyone else's in my family. For some reason my mind goes back to that and then thinks ahead and what ended up happening. Wow ... I guess you really just never know what is going to happen in life.

Could have happened to anyone if it happened to N. And you shouldn't think like that but you do... kind of like, if it happened to her, it could happen to me. The one big thing I've learned as a mother is that it is so easy to put yourself "there". Know what I mean? I've really sort of had a hard time with it thinking about her situation in the last month and a half. I mean, what if. You shouldn't relate it to your kids, but you do. I hear or read of something bad or sad happening to a child and I feel it like I never knew I could feel it.

I think I just realize, I love my baby so much and this is the same feeling that everyone has (or is supposed to have) for their children and if my heart breaks for them just by hearing their sad story... imagine how they must feel to actually have to go thru some sort of tragedy.

Since I've had my baby there have been two families and two situations that I have thought so much about. One of my dear friends here had premie triplets a few years ago and lost two of them within weeks of their births. One of the babies lived, has had her problems, but is doing great. I think the only way they were able to survive that situation was by concentrating on their daughter who lived. I think that may also be how us, some of her friends, dealt with it too because now going back and thinking about it... it makes me beyond sad. Now that her daughter is doing well ... she's 2 ... I think my friend may be going back to some of that too. She has mentioned the other two a lot more in recent months than she had.

The other situation I keep thinking about is my cousins who lost their son to leukemia when he was around 20 years old. This happened when I was about 8 years old or so and I understood death at the time - he was the first young person I knew who died - but I obviously didn't understand their pain. They are some of the best people that you would want to know and I think of them so much now. I mean, that had to be 25 years ago at this point.

It can be a lot more simple than that too. I just think of all of the broken hearts I endured and all of the tears over some damn guy and all of the times I cried to my mom over stuff like that and other things and I guess I know that no matter how old that baby gets, when you see those tears and unhappiness... that is your baby who is crying and unhappy.

Just things I never thought of until I became a mother. I guess its a kind of pain that you get to bear but its a good thing. I'm looking at her sleeping in her swing right now and I know that I know her better than anyone else and it will always be that way and that is something amazing and special that can never be taken away, no matter what.

So anyway, I don't mean to come back to blogging with something so freaking sad. Its just sort of an interesting nervous day and I've always sort of wanting to write these thoughts down since I began having them.

So if you pray, pray for N and her family and her baby. She is the whole world to N which I definitely understand.