I want to preface this post by saying that I mean no offense to anyone who reads this if they have a stick figure family sticker on the back of the car.

Before Lila was born, I always found these stickers with the dad and his golf clubs, mom in her apron, little boy in ball cap, baby girl in a stroller, 2 dogs, a cat and a gerbil extremely irritating. It really bugged me driving behind minivans with the stick figure families, especially the mickey mouse family sticker, those might be the worst and I had to fight back every urge to scrape them off. There are so many varieties now. Part of me thought that those stick figures were making targets out of those families, that they were telling the world a little too much about themselves. Jenny and I agreed that we would never drive a mini-van because neither one of us wanted to be the one stuck driving it, especially me since I know I would get stuck with it and there was no way we'd have a stick figure family.

Since Lila has died, I have an entirely different view of these stickers. I hate them even more. I feel that every time I drive by one, those stupid stick figures are telling me about the perfect family inside the van with their 4 children and small zoo of pets. They brag to me how much luckier they are than I am and they are right since we are driving around with an empty car seat in the back. A friend of mine that I met recently who has gone through a similar loss describes people who have had a perfectly by-the-book life as blissfully ignorant. So much can go wrong and it can go wrong at anytime and before it does, you are blissfully ignorant. I wish everyday to be in that mold and not mourning the loss of my daughter. This stick figure family is an example of many things in my life right now, my perception about them has changed. Another example is that I had peanut butter and jelly toast everyday before work and now I haven't had it once since Lila died. Everything in my life smells and tastes different than it once did. I knew everything would change once Lila got here but this was not what I had in mind. - Mike