Waves of Grief

This year, the week leading up to Leah's birthday was easier than last year.  March 20th, still felt hard!  Yet, the week following it has felt a bit harder than I had expected.  Maybe I thought that since I had been feeling like God has brought me to a much brigher place, a place where my heart feels healed enough to focus once again on the future with hope ~ that this wave would be smaller.  Or perhaps it just felt harder because this year I had farther to fall from.  It's hard because waves of grief are not concerned with asking my permission before arriving. They just come!

 It is just plain hard to celebrate your child's birthday without them!  It takes more strength than I have to bake chocolate cupcakes, buy balloons, pick out a special book given to our family in Leah's honor, buy Kyla a special big sister gift, stand at Hallmark trying to find a special daughter birthday card that captures my heart for Leah, to place in her memory box.  It feels exhausting because each step requires so much work to hold back the tears in those public places.  Yet, those are all tasks that I truly WANTED to do, for myself, but espeically for Kyla in honor of her baby sister's birthday!