scrambled eggs and a funeral.

I woke up to the sounds of crying down the hallway at my sister's house in San Diego. What could have gone wrong this early in the day? I stumbled out haphazardly and saw a scene so unexpected that I didn't even know how to react. At the end of the hallway, my niece stood screaming with tears the size of bullets running down her cheeks, looking down at her favorite toy broken with no hope of salvation. It was gone, it was done and it was over. It was the death of the little red and yellow shopping cart. And there she stood near it, mourning its death, crying her little hazel eyes out--only taking breaks for gasps of air. I came over and tried to help heal the pain, try to help her play with something else... tried to help her forget. But she wouldn't take any of it. So my sister and I played the game of statues that morning, wanting to help so badly, but not knowing what to do or how to do it for that matter. So we stood, we watched, and we waited. She looked to us for help: to fix it, to make it better--but there was nothing we could do for it, and that was just the truth.

And it's so sad...but true. Sometimes, as much as you want to fix it, you just can't. As much as you want to make it better, make it the same, make it the way it used to be--you have no control over it. I stood there and watched her pain over her first heartbreak. She stayed there pining over that cart until she reluctantly dragged her way towards comfort: her mother. She clung to my sister's side and cried some more. When suddenly, a flash of quick thought prompted me to look over at the cart, and I knew what I could do for her. The only thing that we can ever do.

I checked to make sure she couldn't see me from where she was sitting, and moved swiftly towards the cart. I picked it up with its broken pieces and set it outside in the corner of the garden. I walked back inside, and could see her glancing down the hallway in search of it. But it was gone. She scanned the room, peeking here and there to see where it was and came to terms with the fact that it had just disappeared.

That was the last time she cried over that cart.

Just like that, we started the day anew with some scrambled eggs. And not once did we mention the cart. Maybe someday, when she's older we can sit and chat about that cart she once loved so much, and laugh. But we all know that time's not now, not yet.