I crept down to the scary, dank, basement to retrieve something from storage. There lay Gracie, abandoned and forgotten. At one point, Gracie had been the most important "friend" Ellie had, but her time had long since passed. I bought Gracie when Ellie was going through chemotherapy so she would have a special friend to take with her each week during hospital time. When Ellie would become upset, we would say, "Gracie feels so sad and scared, what should we tell her?" And Ellie would stop crying to comfort her baby, telling Gracie that everything would be OK.
The first time we brought Gracie in and it worked so well, our nurse, Becky exclaimed how much she loved Gracie because Gracie made her job so much easier. Becky was one of those phenomenal people that make the rest of us feel like slackers. Not only has she adopted something like 4 children from the foster care system, but she works as a nurse, and she runs a business. Becky was an astounding nurse and someone that made going through chemo with a 4-year-old that much easier because we knew she was on our side. At one point, she was at a Candlelighters luncheon and I went over to tell her how much her exceptional care had meant to all of us. She teared up when I told her and she said that she always felt so horrible giving Ellie her chemo because it felt so much as if she were hurting Ellie (or Zeba Beba Donna Sandy as she called herself at the time, but that is a different blog all together).
Once when Ellie was in the PICU, she was covered in tubes. She had gone into respiratory arrest and when she started to come out of the sedation, she was panicked when she felt all the tubes emanating from her body. She become really agitated and tried to get out of bed. I had Gracie on the bed with Ellie and put Gracie into Ellie's arms. She closed her eyes and began to rub Gracie's head as she calmed down immediately. That was the magic of Gracie.
Before Gracie, Ellie had been given a doll named Tabitha. Ellie's relationship with Tabitha was not quite as tender as her relationship with Gracie. Ellie's favorite game with Tabitha was to throw her down the stairs. Tabitha had some kind of battery inside of her that allowed her to "talk". When her battery started to run out, the talking would not stop and she was like something out of a horror movie. Garbled, deep sounds emanated from her body that would not subside. Quite frightening I've gotta tell you. Finally, Tabitha, after one too many tosses down the stairs lost the use of one of her open-close eyes. One eye remained permanently shut. We used this to our advantage by taking her with us to the eye doctor once to find out if anything could be done, or at the very least get a fancy name for the one eye won't open syndrome. There is a name for it, by the way, but I cannot recall what it is, for it was in fact, quite long and quite fancy.
Ellie was done with Gracie a while ago, maybe a year or so. I however was not. I could not just give Gracie to the thrift store as I do most toys that we are finished with. She had just meant too much to us at too many pivotal times. So instead, I held onto her which is why I found her abandoned in the basement. Suddenly it hit me that the couple across the street have a beautiful 6 month old who would most likely give Gracie loads of lovin'. My hope for baby Juna is that when she has her moments of fear or upset that Baby Gracie will give her the same special magic that she gave to Ellie when she needed it most.
