Remember

My heart aches for my baby tonight.  What would she be like now, just before her third birthday?  How much would she have grown?  Would she know how to tell everyone that it's her birthday?  Would she ask for her own heehee?  Would she be talking in sentences or using many more signs?  Would we have grown her hair long for the winter, with pigtails and ribbons and bows?  (Okay probably not on that one, she really had no tolerance for froofroo hair things)  She was so good at pottying on the big girl potty, would she be wearing big girl pants with Dora on them?  She would be starting school in Miss Ennis's class, would she be really proud of that fact? 

Does she know?  Does she know in heaven that it's her birthday? Does she know in heaven how much we miss her? So very many things that I miss.  So many things that I didn't get to do. 

Her room is so full of Laynee, yet so empty.  Things, that's all that is there.  Precious things, because they were touched by Laynee, worn by Laynee, loved by Laynee, yet nothing more than things.  The smell of her room is becoming stale, losing the sweet Laynee scent, a painful reminder that time keeps going on without her.  My arms, they are empty too.  Empty because my baby has been ripped from them in a seemingly merciless way. 

I really don't know how to have her birthday.  I DON"T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS!!!!!  How do I give my children a healthy way to remember their sister's birthday, but not dwell on death.  The tears are there in their eyes, the sadness is etched onto their faces, the grief is there in the silence, in the unspoken words.  I have a plan of purchasing a cake for her.  I will also get a birthday balloon for her, attach a letter of love for her, and together we will set the balloon free.  The balloon will rise to the heavens and dance away in the wind.  We will never really know where the balloon goes, just as we will never really know, this side of heaven, where our Laynee is. Heaven is a mystery that God did not intend for us to solve.  He gave us just enough truth about heaven to make us long for it but not enough that we can ever really comprehend what or where it is. 

Yesterday a friend unknowingly gave me an idea for Laynee's birthday.  She stopped into my shop with a gift that told me that she has not forgotten Laynee's birthday.  She remembers.  With the gift was a card.  Written in the card were several beautiful memories of Laynee.  Little things that she remembered about her, those things that made Laynee so dear.  Laynee touched so many lives.  She touched the lives of those she knew and those whom she did not know.  She touched lives in her life and in her death.  She left behind a legacy of love and joy.  What greater gift could we give to her than to tell of how she touched so many.  Please share, either by commenting on the blog, or privately through my email kkholmes1@verizon.net how she touched your life. We have a beautiful box with a satin ribbon that was given to us by the hospital.  When we received the box, it had in it a clipping of her hair, her footprints, her handprints and the hospital band from the night she died.  I have added a few of our most cherished items.  I would love to add a list of all the people and the ways that she touched them in her short time here.  Her life was far too short in my opion, but it was not without a beautiful purpose.  Though everything about her death seems terribly wrong, I know that it is not.  It is exactly right because God is good and God does not make mistakes.

Thank you to anyone who takes part in this.