She's still here...

...that's what I think.

The above collage can be enlarged if you click it with your mouse.

Some of you might just think I'm crazy right now. And, most of you would be right! Having your 8 year old die so suddenly will make a person kind of nutty. How ever nutty I may be right now, I know for sure that we've had some strange happenings around this house in the past 6 months. Maybe strange isn't quite the word I should be using. Maybe unusual would be a better fit. Which ever..here I go, trying to explain things.

About 3 months ago, I was in the kitchen doing dishes. I kept hearing, what I thought was a child's voice. Yep, thought I'd lost my mind. I stopped washing dishes and stood there in silence, just listening. I had no idea what I had heard and even chalked it up to me losing my mind. But, it happened again, several days later and various times of that particular day. Finally, I realized it was the toy that hangs on the inside of our front door. I figured it was the batteries shorting out. I left that toy alone and didn't think much more about it. That particular toy is a small scaled down version of a fridge and you can see it in the top left corner of the above collage. In order to make it work, you have to place the magnetic alphabetic letters inside the fridge. At that point, the fridge starts singing, in a child like voice. For example; place the letter A inside and it will sing a little song, such as, "A is for apple yum yum yum." That's not the entire little song, but you get the just of it.

Now, we all know that toys with batteries short out and go haywire from time to time. But,,,,,a couple of different toys, at the same time, on the same day going haywire it's just kind of unheard of. To me anyway. In the top center of the collage you see Carly's toy shelf. Those toys have sat untouched for 6 long months now. My heart breaks each day I see those toys, but at the same time, I can't bear to part with them. The toys on the shelves and toys that are in the baskets (which Carly picked out herself), went off a couple weeks after the magnetic fridge incident. Hearing those toys go off at the same time was a little freaky for me. Again, I figured it was just batteries going on the fritz.

Moving on to the picture on the top right of the collage. A few weeks beyond the toy shelf incident. Ashleigh was in using the bathroom one afternoon. She started yelling for me to get in there. When I walked in to the bathroom, her eyes were just as big as saucers. She was standing looking at the toilet paper holder. As I looked down, I saw the toilet paper had been unrolled and was in a heap on the floor. Then she told me what had happened. She used the toilet paper,,,TMI, I know, but I have to explain it. Anyway, she used it, flushed the toilet and all of a sudden the entire roll of toilet paper started to unwind. She told me she rolled it back up, but it did it again. That's when she yelled for me. Now to understand this whole toilet paper story, I should explain something first. Carly loved to sit on the toilet. I kid you not, she was like a man. Sorry men, but it's the truth! She would sit and sit and sit. She actually sat Indian style (crisscross applesauce). Every time she got off the toilet, her poor bottom had a red ring around it from sitting so darn long! But she sat and read books, played with toys AND she unrolled the toilet paper. More often than not, the entire roll that was on the holder would be unwound and on the bathroom floor by the time Carly decided she was done going potty. As I stood in the bathroom with Ashleigh both of us staring at the unrolled toilet paper, I went over and rolled it all back up. And I will be darned if it didn't unroll while we both stood there. Our chins were both on the floor. The whole roll just kept going. That's about the time that I said, "Carly's here." I then went on to tell Ashleigh about the magnetic fridge and the toys on the toy shelf. (just so you know,,, our toilet paper NEVER EVER unrolled on it's own before that,,,without the help of little Miss Carly)!

The purple morning glory that you see in the bottom left corner of the collage has an interesting story behind it as well. My mom planted a pack of morning glory seeds. Once they started to grow, she gave me a hunk of them. I went out and planted my hunk in my garden. I watched each day for flowers to come, but they didn't come on as quickly as I thought they would. One day, a few weeks back, I was sitting outside and realized there were flowers growing from my hunk of morning glory! What I saw though, was a completely different color of morning glory than my mom planted (from the same pack) and had growing at her house. Moms were deep pink. As you see in my collage, mine is PURPLE. Carly's favorite color was purple! Of course I called my mom almost immediately to tell her I had PURPLE morning glory's. Her words to me, "Oh Joany, that's Carly." I had to snap that picture and text it to her. She could NOT believe what she was seeing. My purple morning glory came from the same package of deep pink ones that she planted. So,,,,did a purple seed get mixed up in the package? Maybe. But, how is it that I end up with the purple flowers???

Another unusual thing that has been going on for the past 4-5 months or so, really didn't have me suspecting anything. Until of course all the above things went on. If you look at the collage, the bottom center picture and the bottom right corner picture, you will see an end table. This was Carly's end table. If you look closely, you will see the messy inside which has been left untouched for 6 months now. Left the exact way that Carly left it. It's full of board puzzles. On to this story. I started noticing the door open on that end table. Like I said, about 5 months ago or so. I thought it was kind of odd, but didn't really dwell on it. I just kept shutting it each time I found it open. After the above things had gone on, I found the door to this end table was often times open more frequently. Finally, I asked if anyone had been going through Carly's end table. Everyone said, "no" and they looked at me with the look,,,why would we? Yesterday, I found that door open again.

I've gone over all these unusual things in my mind over and over again. I don't know what you all think, but I'm thinking,,, she's still here.