Meet Again

Summer 2020

July 8th 2020: Grace's 5th birthday.

Logan and Rory let Grace decide what she wanted to do for her birthday. She wanted to have breakfast with Lorelai and Luke, and she wanted butterflies. They weren't sure what she meant by butterflies, but after a little research they found something that they thought she'd like.

Logan, Rory, Nicky, Grace, Sammy, Lorelai, and Luke were all sitting at the kitchen table eating Grace's breakfast of choice. Pancakes, eggs, strawberries, and chocolate milk.

"Grace, I like your butterfly shirt" Lorelai signed. Grace was wearing a white T-shirt with little purple butterflies on it. Purple was her favorite color and at the time she was really into butterflies, so Rory figured that it was fitting for her butterfly birthday activity.

"Mommy gave it to me" Grace signed.

"Because you like purple" Sammy said.

"And blue" Grace signed. "But purple is better"

"Nicky, do you wanna eat?" Logan asked. Nicky shook his head. "Then drink the chocolate milk"

"I don't like it" Nicky said. "I just want water"

"Ok"

Later in the day they went to a butterfly conservatory. Grace had the biggest smile on her face as they followed a tour guide though large room  full of trees and flowers with butterflies all over the place.

Rory was crouched next to Grace who had a butterfly on her shoulder. "What do you think, babe?" Rory asked

"I have a butterfly on me" Grace signed and giggled.

"So we did a good job with your birthday?" Rory sighed.

Grace nodded.

——

A month later on August 11th Nicky turned 8 and unfortunately he was sick and had to spend his birthday in the hospital.

Rory spent the night in the hospital with Nicky and in the morning, Logan brought Grace, Sammy, and Nicky's favorite cake to the hospital.

Later in the day, Rory was filling out some paperwork at the nurses station when she saw Lorelai walk in. "Hi"

"Hey. Hold on, I just need a second to finish this" Rory said. She finished filling out the forms and passed the papers back to the nurse before turning back to Lorelai. "I thought you weren't coming until later"

"Things were slow at the inn" Lorelai said. "So where's is everyone?"

"Nicky fell asleep a little while ago so Logan took the little ones to get some lunch" Rory told her.

As they walked towards Nicky's room, Lorelai noticed that Rory seemed upset. "Are you ok?"

Rory sighed. "No. My son turns 8 today and he has to spend his birthday in a hospital because he has an infection that his body is too weak to fight because his immune system was wiped out by the damn chemo. He's too tired to play with his presents, he doesn't feel like doing anything, and he probably won't even eat his cake because he knows it might make him vomit. You know, all he wanted for his birthday was to go to Lego Land. That's all he asked for. 3 days ago he was so excited to go that's it was all he could talk about. Now he's laying in a hospital bed. I don't want this to be all he remembers about his childhood"

"Rory, that little boy will remember this when he grows up, but he's also gonna remember that while he was going through one of the hardest things a person can go through, his parents did everything they could to help him. He knows how much you love him, and he knows that you'll do anything for him"