Alden was staring out the window the other day and I just started crying. It was snowing,  the heater was running, her little curls were cascading down the back of her jammies and I just lost it.

I am the Mother who looks at her children and cries both out of sadness and joy. 

I didn’t ask to be this Mother. I would NEVER ask to be this Mother; I don’t think anyone would ask to go through what we have. I feel guilt every day when I look at my beautiful girls. I don’t feel it as strong when I look at Landon because he came before Kenley died… yet I remember how I felt toward him after she died. This is an incredibly difficult thing to admit but there was a time after Kenley died that I couldn’t hug him. I remember scream crying to Shane outside one day about 6 months after she died that I couldn’t hug Landon because I feel his heart beating against my chest and I never got to feel Kenley’s. I know he tried to understand the words coming out of my mouth, but we were both still in our early grief over her death and I think he thought I was insane.

I remember after Alden came that there was a time where I felt NOTHING toward her. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to open my heart again to her. Obviously now I realize that just because she arrived didn’t mean that I would love Kenley any less. And, the same thing goes for Rowan. These girls have brought so much love to my heart and they never for once took away from my love for Kenley. But, unfortunately the grief will always coexist with the joy. The sadness with the happiness.  The good days with the bad days.

It’s nearly December. Today is 11/29; in one month Kenley should be turning 3.

When I say it in my head it seems impossible. This is not my life. I do not have a dead Daughter. This is all just some huge dream that I need to wake up from, but it’s not. It is real. It is my life, and I do in fact have a Daughter who is dead. It doesn’t make her any less my Daughter, but it is crazy how it changes my every day life. She needs and deserves to be parented, yet it is incredibly difficult to do that with 3 living children who literally consume EVERY.WAKING.SECOND. of my life.

December is your month, K. You are so loved and so missed. I cannot even fathom that you should be almost 3. Stopping to consider the little person you would be cuts my heart like a knife and I cannot do it. I know the things that I’m missing out on, and it hurts me so much. I wish you were here with every fiber of my being, and I hope you know that.

I don’t know how many different ways I can express how much I miss and love you…

You are mine and I am yours. I love you.