I will not describe the illness, or her final months, because that grief belongs to our family and does not need to be laid out in detail; it is enough to know that she was five years old, and that she was the light of our lives, and that she is gone.

Her very favorite thing in all the world had been a red dress.

Her grandmother had hand-sewn it for her, for her fifth Christmas, out of soft red fabric, and Lily had loved it beyond all reason.

She wore it everywhere: to the grocery store, to the park, and even, when she thought we weren’t looking, to bed.

And toward the end, when she grew too weak to walk, when the disease had taken nearly everything from her small body, she would hold the red fabric against her cheek, and close her eyes, and smile, because, she told me once, it made her feel strong, and bright, and impossible to overlook.

That was the thing about my Lily.