More Surprises

I was remarking to Ed that I was sad that the last picture I thought we had of Hudson and me together was this one from our visit to the cherry blossom festival in early April:

When I mentioned it to Ed, he remembered all of a sudden that we had a few pictures from our trip to Chicago a week or so later that we’d taken on his Blackberry (mine, as you may recall, had been “disappeared” by the munchkin earlier in the weekend at our friends’ apartment—this was the same trip from which our friends recently discovered a video of Hudson we’d never seen).

After Hudson died, I remember being so upset that we hadn’t had room to take our camera on that trip (we were trying not to check any bags so we could avoid the ridiculous bag fees). Hudson had her first (and sadly and unexpectedly, her last) visit with her own personal petting zoo at her aunt and uncle’s farm outside of Chicago, where they raise Icelandic sheep (one superbly named Tar Heel), llamas, and chickens. She was particularly enamored of the chickens and busied herself with chasing them around as much as we (and they) would let her.

So you can imagine my excitement to learn that we actually did have a few pictures of her from that visit. I was again filled with anticipation to see what the pictures might hold. And was I rewarded. They are grainy, but otherwise perfect. Look how fascinated she was. I just can’t get enough of that face—inquisitive and piercing, yet decidedly impish and joyful. And yet I’m filled with sorrow to know that I will never see it again, that its bearer was taken from us long before she ever had the chance to explore all the adventures to which her curiosity would have drawn her, that these are, I think, the last pictures I have of us together. My girl, so amazing.