Memories of Daniel

It's easy when writing a blog which started as a consequence of losing our youngest son, to fall into looking at our losses and quantifying on a day to day basis how MUCH we really have lost, and how much he did not have a chance to do while on Earth. It's also easy to focus on the quest of getting US medical policy to change and advocate screening EKGs for all twelve year olds in an attempt to diagnose the ones with hidden cardiac conduction disorders before this loss potentially happens to their families too. What IS difficult sometimes, is remembering the fact that Daniel and our family had twelve and a half fabulous loving years together with an abundance of hysterical and fond memories.
Daniel was fond of cooking and liked to cook sometimes with the things that were available in the house. We were commenting this week that we would like to make cupcakes but lacked the motivation to gather the supplies to make them from scratch. This did not stop Daniel. Somehow, Daniel could take a pre-made pancake and waffle mix and turn in into easily made cupcakes in paper cases. Somehow, he would make icing, even when we did not have the conventional icing supplies in the house. This was especially smart because with a diabetic daughter, I don't keep abundant sugary things in the kitchen. We have local honey, blackstrap molasses, pancake syrup, some low sugar jams, and very little white and brown sugar. We tended to eat Daniel's cupcakes without asking what was in them. I suspect the icing ranged from something made with pancake syrup some days, to thinned jam others, and modified sugar free pudding mix on others. The other day, I was really craving a Daniel cup cake. Fresh, low sugar, and full of mystery !
I also remember his kind and gentle help with the animals. When one of them was really ill or had aged to the point of being near death, I used to ask him how he thought we could make them more comfortable. He didn't worry about what we had to do and he was calm. He just took care of the need. Daniel, it was a short life, well lived, and well played.