8 weeks

This morning I awoke with the same feeling that I have every Monday since losing Laynee.  It is a feeling of heaviness and very deep sadness.  Each Monday adds another tally mark in my mind, another week since I've held her, kissed her, smelled her.  Today is tally number 8. 8 weeks without her sunshine. Again I am    taken back to that Monday, Labor Day.  That day we did so many things with Laynee, for Laynee, not knowing that it would be the last time.  That morning at the hotel I read her fuzzy duck book to her, I never knew that I'd never read it to her again.  We never knew that when she waved bye, bye to Grandpa and Grandma after breakfast at Crackle Barrel that they would not see her again on this earth.  When I changed her from her pink "Paris France Girl" shirt to her "It's good to be me" shirt, I didn't know that I wouldn't get to dress her again.  Grant didn't know that he was taking her for her last ever ride on the golf cart.  Aunt Karla didn't know that Laynee would never again help in her garden.  Danielle didn't know that she would never get to wash mud from her feet again.  Uncle Marty didn't know that  her heehee's were eating the last carrot from her hand.    Jade and Garrett didn't know that they were playing the last game of "chase" with her.  When she was laughing with Garrett on the trampoline that afternoon, daddy didn't know that he wouldn't hear her laughter again.  I didn't know that her cheeseburger would be her last meal or that when I wiped her face and took her from her seat at the table that she would not sit in her chair again.  She had her favorite shoes,camouflaged crocs, on just before the accident.  I loved those shoes and the way she always wore them on the wrong feet.  Now they sit empty on the shelf in her room.  And when she stopped to play in the bubbles in the garage,  Jamee and I didn't know that we were seeing her radiant smile for the last time. I don't remember the last time I kissed her.  I know without doubt that I kissed her many times that day.  It was impossible to pick her up without planting a kiss on her soft, chubby cheeks but I don't remember the last kiss.  I've asked myself many times if it would have been better if I'd known that these would all be lasts.  I think not, for surely if I'd known, I would have grieved all those lasts instead of enjoying them as I did.   Every moment of our life is priceless.