Missing Avery...waiting on Sissy

So it's been over a year now...and I'm sure for everyone else things are worlds different. Avery will always be a memory for people...and in 20 years I'm sure some people won't even recall him that easy. That hurts...no mom wants to realize that their child's death here means his memory is limited to so many others. When I look around and see faces of babies and children who are probably about Avery's age, I always think "I wonder..." and I can't and won't stop that.

It won't stop at every annual event, every Christmas, when his friends would be going to Kindergarten, going to prom, graduating....all of it. I'll always wonder.

Some people like to try and give your heart ideas to hope for, positive thoughts to some how cut the miss...the sediment is sweet, but the words and ideas are no where near enough to do what necessary. It's like putting a bandaide on a broken arm, it's sweet but not going to help much. But he wasn't an awful memory, was beautiful, he was precious, the best time of life. Which makes it all the more hard to let go. He's not a painful memory...I just miss him so.

People say "O he's your angel" "he's with you everywhere" "he's happy" "he's whole" O boy do I know...it doesn't help much to repeat all of it...because he feels all those things feel so far away from me here. It just is the way I feel. No words are going to change that.

God aches for us in the same way, our Spirits long for Him in the same way, only more. Those who have babies and children in heaven know just how amazing Heaven is and how beautiful it will be to get back there. And it hurts to be here stuck knowing just how amazing it will be.

So it's a miss...it's not a pain...people think it's a pain...it's not a pain....it's the natural ache to "go home" and be whole...only a lot more intense. Who can be sad to have such a beautiful baby, to be loved so intensely, to be needed so wholly.

That being said...things are getting really tricky, waiting on Avery's sissy.

No baby has been hoped for more I believe. We're so excited to meet her so excited to see her and touch her. There are plenty plans and discussions....

I get so excited and happy when she rolls around and kicks. I get excited when my ticker clicks off closer and closer to the due date....and the months get smaller and smaller.

But a lot is bittersweet...like re-doing the nursery. I'm excited and happy...but I'm also sad and reminiscent. I remember how tickled Jared was when he got the paint and put up the border and how we picked out little things here and there to get the room situated. All the clothes and toys and gadgets...so many of them unwrapped...

She can't replace Avery and we don't expect her to at all. She's going to be a new gem in our family. A new tale, a new adventure. She'll give us a new meaning to life, a new chance and a new breath of life. She'll give us many laughs and many tears, she'll probably have us holding our breaths a few times and glad we are breathing to watch her many others.

I hope she knows how much she's loved, and I also hope she knows all about her older brother and how special and wonderful he is. I hope she knows how much we dreamed of her and want her and how excited we are to have her. I fall in love with her more and more everyday, if that's even possible. December/Jan feels so far away. I'm ready today.

But then...I've been ready for a while now.