Yesterday Girl found a pretty green notepad with a “D” on it, sitting on my dresser.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Oh,” I said, “it’s a notepad I bought for Aunt Dora, but I didn’t get a chance to give it to her. Do you want it?”

Of course she did. She’ll write on anything that isn’t nailed down.

Aunt Dora passed away in June. For a while, whenever I woke in the middle of the night, the thought “Aunt Dora is dead,” would involuntarily pop into my mind, as if my subconsious were grappling with the hard concept. Only recently has this stopped.

Girl doodled on that notepad for hours. On the first page, she drew a picture of Aunt Dora, but it looked as if she had four legs. Girl explained to me that that was her walker.

Then, on the next dozen or so pages, she wrote sentences all beginning with “Aunt Dora is.” In her best kindergarten phonetics, she wrote, “Aunt Dora is a special person.” “Aunt Dora is a great aunt.” “Aunt Dora is the best person in the world.”

She kept wanting my help. “What else should I put?” she kept asking me.

I didn’t know what to say. I got tripped up on the word “is.” Did Girl realize Aunt Dora is gone? Would she ask me when we can visit her again?

I didn’t remind Girl that Aunt Dora is in heaven. Maybe the next time I wake up in the middle of the night, I won’t think “Aunt Dora is dead.” I’ll just think, “Aunt Dora is.”