<\/p>\n
Her Seventh Birthday<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Maybe because on September 28th, we would have been celebrating your seventh birthday. And had you not been taken from us, by now you would have learned to sit up, crawl, walk, talk, color, write your name, ride a bike, and be busy growing up. Such a beautiful little girl.<\/span><\/p>\n You would be in first grade this year.<\/span><\/p>\n But you missed all of that. And we missed all of that.<\/span><\/p>\n We all lost so much when we lost you. Words can\u2019t begin to express the sorrow I feel. No words can express how much I wish I could pick you up, hug you, and tell you how much I love you. I wish we could have had a 7th birthday party and we all could have wished you a happy birthday and watched up open your birthday gifts and blow out the seven glowing candles on your birthday cake.<\/span><\/p>\n Sadly it was not meant to be. God had other plans for you,\u00a0 my little one.<\/span><\/p>\n Your little lifetime didn\u2019t even last a single day. Your life was measured in hours and not in years. Yet the number of days your tiny life will affect all of those who love you is infinite. I know there will never be a day I won\u2019t think of you. There won\u2019t be a day when your mom and dad won\u2019t think of you. There won\u2019t be a day when any of us who met you during your short life will ever forget you.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s so hard to believe it has been seven years since you were born \u2013 and seven years since you were taken from us. And to know you were taken from us by a preventable disease makes it all the harder to bear and understand. And my little one, it makes it all so confusing and painful\/.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t wonder where you are now. I know where you are. You\u2019re in heaven with the other angels. And, I\u2019ll admit, I have been a doubter at times when it comes to whether heaven and hell exist. But I have no doubts anymore. Even mankind in all its ugliness, meanness, and ignorance would say you belong to Heaven and the angels.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t have any doubts now. I know now that there is a heaven. And I know you are there. You are where beautiful baby girls who have had a lifetime taken away from them belong \u2013 you are in heaven with the angels\u2026I know now that you are an angel too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But that doesn’t mean I miss you any less. <\/span><\/p>\n I hope that you and your angel friends will look down upon us who love you and comfort all who grieve for you. I know you will bring peace and comfort to your mom and dad. They love you and miss you so much\u2026 so much more than any words I could write could ever say.<\/span><\/p>\n Somehow I feel that you know how much we miss you and love you. I know that you feel our sadness and our grief because you are with us \u2013 even now. Maybe we are missing out on a lot more than you are, but I cannot help but think about all the things that all of us who love you are missing because you were taken from us.<\/span><\/p>\n So on your Seventh birthday, I cried. I tried not to, but I did. I\u2019m sorry. Thinking of the things we\u2019ve missed \u2013\u00a0 you learn to sit up, watching you learn how to crawl and then walk, watching you laugh, hearing your little giggles, hearing your first words, watching you take your first drink from a sippy cup, seeing you get on the school bus and so many more.<\/span><\/p>\n So many things we\u2019ll never get to see.<\/span><\/p>\n And we\u2019ll never get to see how your eyes lit up when you saw your very first Christmas tree. We\u2019ll never get to hear you tell us all about your first day of Kindergarten.\u00a0 We\u2019ll never hear you tell us about your first day in first grade. Or see you write your name for the first time.\u00a0 We\u2019ll never get to watch you as you read your first book or watch you learn to ride a bike. Now, we can only imagine all of the things we’re going to miss as you were growing up.<\/span><\/p>\n We will never get to take turns holding your hand as we take you on your first trip to the zoo. Or see your eyes light up when you see an elephant for the first time. <\/span><\/p>\n We miss you so much. We\u2019ll miss you and watching you grow and change from a beautiful baby, into a precious little girl. And from a sweet little girl into a beautiful young lady. We\u2019ll miss the school events, the school plays, the school concerts, your first date, your high school graduation.<\/span><\/p>\n What you might have been we\u2019ll never know because you were stolen from us too soon. We didn\u2019t even get to keep you for one single day.<\/span><\/p>\n To know that your death could have been easily prevented only makes your passing harder to understand and so hard to bear.<\/span><\/p>\n If only\u2026If only things would have turned out differently. If only you had lived. If only you were with us on your Seventh birthday. I so wish all of us who love you could have watched you blow out the candles on your birthday cake. And instead of us looking back in anguish with sad and aching hearts, all of us who love you would have been so happy watching you grow up.<\/span><\/p>\n I will never forget you. I will never forget those precious moments right after you were born when all of us who loved you took turns holding you in our arms and looking into those beautiful eyes that opened to the world for the first time.<\/span><\/p>\n I hope you and your angels look down upon all of us who love you and comfort all of us who miss you.<\/span><\/p>\n And my little one, we all love you and miss you more than any words could ever say.<\/span><\/p>\n I pray that you and the other angels comfort your mom and dad and bring them peace and solace. Your seventh birthday was not an easy day for them\u2026 or for any of us who know you and love you.<\/span><\/p>\n The gift of your birth is a gift those of us who love you will never forget.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u00a0 know you know how much we love you, how very much we miss you, and how we all keep you alive in our thoughts and prayers every single day. <\/span><\/p>\n We all remembered you on your seventh birthday. We miss you and love you so very much. <\/span><\/p>\n You are always with us. We will never forget you, little one.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Her Seventh Birthday I\u2019ve been thinking about you a lot lately. Maybe because on September 28th, we would have been celebrating your seventh birthday. And had you not been taken from us, by now you would have learned to sit up, crawl, walk, talk, color, write your name, ride a bike, and be busy growing up. Such\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29182,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29181\/revisions\/29182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}