Tonight I put Anevay to bed, but ten minutes later she came out crying her little heart out. "Carlos," was all she could say. Turns out all the feelings my daughter has been keeping a lid on, came out tonight. In my girl's arms, she held a stuffed cat that Carlos gave her. "I remember that he gave it to me, but I can't remember when," she said. Not being able to remember the full memory made her feel worse. I told her that some of my memories are vague, too, and that's what memories are- our brains discriminate between them for reasons we often don't truly understand. I tried to fill her in with as many details of when Carlos gave her the cat... I could see her sweet little self trying to pull the memories inside- to make them her own. I hope she was successful- they are kind thoughts of one of the many times her friend was good to her.
Anyway, I'm not up for going into the whole discussion Anevay and I had... I will say that my girl doesn't believe that he's dead. She looked around my bedroom and said, "I think he's here, and everywhere." I told her she might be right. Most of the things we covered in our talk were Anevay's most private thoughts about Carlos, and she doesn't want to publically share them. She did say, however, that she'd appreciate if I'd post a picture of what she calls, "Carlos' cat."
So here you have it... Carlos' cat. Anevay hopes you like him. She's renamed him Carlos, and plans on sewing a little felt heart into his chest tomorrow morning.
