For your brother and each of your sister's birthdays this year I posted a slideshow.
That just doesn't seem to be right for this one.
Problem is, nothing feels good enough.
Words won't even come that seem powerful enough to express my thoughts at you turning twenty-one years old.
What makes this age so different? You don't look different or act different. The sun is still hot and the planets are still lined up. Everything looks and feels the same.
Everything but me.
It's hard to describe. It's almost a feeling of dread. There is a heaviness in my heart that spreads into my arms when I think of today. I physically feel it.
Am I, for the very first time after twenty-ones years of watching four children grow so rapidly before my eyes, just beginning to realize that I will never get any of that time back? I know that I've known this, I've even blogged about it - but I think it was only in my brain and tonight my heart is not taking the news so well.
The weekend before you were born I was in the hospital in false labor. There was still six weeks to go and the nurse patiently explained to my young and ignorant self what Braxton Hicks were.
So, I went home.
Three days later after a shower and make-up and curling my hair I arrived at the hospital too late to stop the labor. They gave me morphine, I hemoraghed and went into shock, and I remember nothing of you, the beautiful baby girl born to your daddy and me.
It would be almost a full day later before you were placed into my arms and I would feel a strange and powerful kind of love as I stared at you for the first time. And I remember staring, for a long time - just staring.
You and I began to grow up together. I knew little more than you did. And because of that you suffered many things.
Just a moment ago I stood at your door and watched you sleep and it's nearly impossible to wrap my brain around the thought that in one more year you will be the age I was when I was married and very soon would have a baby on the way.
This heaviness in my arms is a longing to just hold you again.
Just another chance to stare.
Just another chance to say, Wow, I love you, baby girl.
Happy Birthday.
Love, Mama
My gratitude list continues . . .
#126 - Delia, and all things her
#127 - My Heavenly Father, for entrusting me
#128 - her forgiveness
