I have sitting here watching video after video of you through my tears.  What a gift it is that I have these videos of you.  I wish I had more.  I love that I can see you so alive; I just want to reach through the screen on my phone and hold you.  I want to remember what it’s like to hold you in my arms.  I watched a video over and over and you where crying in the video.  I miss your cry and if you were here I would never complain about your cry ever.  Hearing it is music to my ears.

We went away last night to “celebrate” our 5th anniversary.  Some dear friends of ours made it possible for us to stay over night in Grand Rapids and have a nice dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House.  We spent time walking around the city looking at Art Prize and people watching (my favorite activity).  I am not sure “celebrate” is the word I would use to describe our time together.    I just don’t think that “celebrate” is something I can do with out you, living through the trauma of loosing you.  Does that mean we didn’t enjoy our time?  Not at all. We had fun, we laughed, played, and relaxed.  We reflected on the struggles we have been through and talked about how different our life is now.  I am sure if we were celebrating our anniversary and you were still here our conversation would have been much different.  We probably would have talked about what our future holds, goals, plans, etc for our family.  I probably would be planning our next big family vacation while your Daddy rolled his eyes. But instead we talked about how bad it hurts that we are forgetting the day to day stuff of having you around.  We talked about how our day to day is “easier” with one child and WE HATE IT.  We talked about missing the craziness of having two young girls.  We talked about seeing you again and how that seems so far away.  We talked about feeling depressed and the topic of suicide and if it’s a struggle or not.  We talked about how we feel robbed of pure joy.  We talked about our grief for Eloise when she misses you. We talked about how waking up every morning we have a minute where we forget that your not here…but that only lasts for a minute probably even less.

There were so many people downtown Grand Rapids and it made me wonder how many people are walking around with the same hurt as us.  I did have the best steak I have ever eaten.  We face-timed with Eloise 5 times in less than a 24 hour period.  It’s hard to leave a child after loosing one.  We enjoyed yummy ice cream and a stroll around the Grand River.  We are so grateful for the time to spend together and be away.  This weekend we will “celebrate” Eloise’s birthday.  You should be here helping her open her gifts baby girl.

I am off to make dinner…I wish you were here to stand at my legs.  I remember I used to feed you so many graham crackers just so I could make dinner.  You just wanted to be by me after being at daycare all day.

I miss you so much it hurts….my heart will be forever broken.

Love,

Mama