Milestone Birthdays

I think every family celebrates different ones in different ways, for us there are a few big birthdays. After the first, it's the fifth.

By five you are so much the little person. You start school that year and begin to get your own ideas about friends, toys, the world.

There are so many firsts in that fifth year.

But not for Eden. Her firsts and lasts were 36 hours apart, or one and the same.

This fifth birthday has been one of the hardest. In August, buying school supplies I ached for the supplies I didn't need. I wept for the tears I would not shed at the front gates. I wondered again why we were chosen for the privilege and heartbreak of being her parents.

Even looking into the face of sweet Zoe, she is nearly the same age as her brother was when Eden was born.

Today, this week, this month, it hurts fresh and brand new. Raw in a way it hasn't been in quite sometime...in a way that makes me yearn to escape it...a hurt so deep I can do nothing but bury my face in the hem of My Father's robes and weep.

I do not feel strong enough for a lifetime of this, yet I know I don't need my own strength to endure it.

I love you baby girl, every day I miss you...I can not wait to hold you again someday ~Mama