LITMIR.BIZ

       Prologue

      The Red Shoes

      LOOKING BACK, I REALIZE THAT MY WHOLE LIFE PIVOTS silently around this single moment: I was standing in a Stride-Rite children’s shoe store, wondering which pair of shoes to buy. Black or blue leather would coordinate with every outfit in Hannah’s preschool wardrobe. I held up one shoe in each color and asked, “Which one do you prefer?”

      Hannah had already decided.

      “These are my shoes,” she declared, holding up a pair of red patent leather Mary Janes.

      I smiled patiently.

      “Hannah, I can only afford to buy one pair of shoes today. Those are lovely, but they’re just not practical. We need to buy something that will match the dresses in your closet.”

      “But Mommy,” she protested, “red shoes go with everything. Besides,” she added, slipping her feet into the display pair, three sizes too big for her, “they fit me just perfect!!!”

      The saleswoman, overhearing the conversation, laughed.

      “What do you think, Mom?” the woman asked. “Should I see if we have a smaller size in the back?”

      I hesitated. Saving money and making sure my children were properly dressed were things that really mattered to me. Yet something about the expectant joy on Hannah’s face lodged the automatic “no” into the back of my throat.

      “Yes, why don’t you check in the back,” I said.

      Hannah squealed and jumped up and down. When the woman returned, Hannah slid her feet into the shoes. This time, they were a perfect fit. “Just like Cinderella!” Hannah whispered. Walking primly to the mirror, she stood for a moment, transfixed, staring at the image of the shoes on her feet. She turned to me.

      “I’d better test them out,” she said, tapping the toe of one shoe on the carpeted floor. Not satisfied, she headed for the entrance to the store. The saleswoman and I followed. As soon as Hannah stepped into the atrium of the mall, the sound of the red shoes on the hardwood floor stopped her in her tracks. Pausing, she clicked the heel of one foot and then the other. She looked up, grinning, to see if I had heard. I smiled and nodded encouragingly.

      Closing her eyes and extending her arms, Hannah began to dance. Oblivious to everything but the shoes on her feet, she skipped and clicked across the floor, twirling in circles, faster and faster. Her pure delight and the defiant flash of the red shoes caught everyone’s attention.

      People who passed smiled first at Hannah, then at each other. Some stopped to watch; a few children and an elderly man joined in. One woman, her arms full of shopping bags, turned to the woman next to her. “I’ve always wanted a pair of red shoes,” she said. “Me, too,” said the other. “What have we been waiting for?”

      Hannah finished her performance by falling in a dramatic heap on the floor. Those who were still watching applauded and cheered. Hannah stood up, smoothed the front of her dress, and adjusted the bow in her hair.

      “Mommy,” she said, turning to me, “I think these are my shoes, don’t you?”

      THE TRUEST MEASURE of a life is not its length, but the fullness in which it is lived.

      When my daughter Hannah was diagnosed with cancer, one month before her third birthday, everything I had believed about myself and my life was called into question. In the face of the fiercest, most unrelenting truth, I began to look for new answers. Hannah herself became my teacher. Honest, funny, and fearless in the way she lived her life and embraced her death, Hannah opened me to a deeper wisdom, to a more joyful, less fearful way of living.

      After Hannah’s death in 1994, I began to write about the journey we had taken together. I struggled to remember every detail, afraid to forget even one. It seemed a hopeless, overwhelming task. I gave up, decided to wait, to let myself grieve and heal. Gradually, I began to see that the story was still unfolding; rather than ending with Hannah’s death, it had only begun. Now, seven years later, there are certain memories—brief moments that may have taken place weeks or months apart—that stand out in bright relief against the background of my days; moments that continue to live in me because they are still teaching me.

      This book is a collection of those memories; a photo album of the moments that became Hannah’s gift to me. May her story offer solace to those who suffer, nourishment to those who long for deeper faith, and inspiration to those who want the courage to live their own truth.