Maddie was bright, inquisitive, beautiful, and charming. She was in love with everything and everyone, and stole people’s hearts away just by being in their presence.

To me, there always seemed to be a look in her eye which said, “All of this is nice, but there’s something more.” No matter how much I focused on her, I had no further insights. 

Leukemia steals your life away, especially the difficult kind. Maddie got sick at age 5. 

Other than a couple of very carefully crafted trips home, and only for a few days, she lived in the hospital for over a year. 

Have you ever seen someone so pale and tired that they could not hold their head up? But if you ask them, “How do you feel?” They would manage a smile and give you two thumbs up? That was Maddie, always. 

I don’t know how many times she was near death, way too many for her parents to smile through. Santa visited her by video call on one of her good days. She showed off that she could put her foot behind her head. Santa gave a valiant effort to follow along. She smiled. She always smiled.

The note came from her mother. “If ever there was a time to pray, it’s now.”

I don’t know how long I sat there. At some point I perceived an image of her as a young woman, mid-twenties and in perfect health. As she approached I was given to understand, “That was the plan all along.” She came here to love everyone and have everyone fall in love with her, then go home — leaving hearts broken open by love.

There were a thousand or more people at her funeral, and her name lives on even today. 

She did her job well and somehow, underneath it all, she knew it. No matter how sick she got, no matter the ravages of the disease or the chemo, she smiled and gave a thumbs up. She fulfilled her spiritual job.