Happy birthday, my sweet Lady Baby. Often I have to do the math in my head – you’d be 8. In my heart you’re forever 2, just as I remember you — your sweet fuzzy hair, your delicious baby chunk, your blue, knowing eyes with a heart-shaped pupil. The smell of your sweet, soft skin filed carefully away in my important memories archive.

April 17, 2012 at 5:12 pm you breathed your first breath into your tiny, fragile lungs. The sounds of your first cries permeated the very depths of our hearts and took our breath away. You forever changed the trajectory of so many lives, including your own Mom’s. You were PERFECT, my baby girl, exactly who God designed and created you to be. Only with that extra 18th chromosome would you have been able to accomplish your life purpose. At the time, however, it was hard for us to grasp this. To put it bluntly, we were terrified. It was impossible not to fall head over heals in love with you. The threat and thought of losing you at any given moment was unbearable. Ever so gradually, we gained our bearings. We acclimated to the very new and very different life that a medically fragile baby brings.

I don’t know if you can see us down here on earth right now or not, but the whole world is a scary place right now. The threat and thought of a virus has us all in quarantine, living a life none of us ever could have imagined. We find ourselves asking how we have become a part of something that “only happens in movies… to other, imaginary people…” Deep water, fear of the unknown / unseen, life interrupted. This old, familiar road that we walked down while you were here – but on a global level. We’re afraid of losing losing those we love the most, or even falling prey to the virus ourselves. Some of us have lost our jobs, our businesses and have no idea how we’re going to pay the bills, or put food on the table for ourselves and our families. The economy has gone to hell in a hand basket. It is unsettling, to say the least, not to know exactly what is around each corner. It is scary not to have any kind of definitive solution to the multitude of problems at hand right now. I remember these feelings of fear all too well, my sweet girl.

One of the many things that God taught me THROUGH YOU is that fear is a liar. I wasted so much time dwelling on all of the “what ifs” – imagining all kinds of horrible worst case scenarios. There are pictures of me holding you in what should have been a beautiful moment… but I see my swollen eyes, my tear-streaked face. I can almost feel my racing heart while Satan whispered fear and lies into my thoughts, “What if she dies tonight…” Instead of soaking in all of your sweetness and marveling at your soft shocks of dark hair, your tiny little face, I was debilitated with crippling fear. I’m sorry for any millisecond of time I wasted in fear. Many of those fears were worse than actually losing you. Why? Because I wasn’t meant to experience those scenarios at that time. When we actually did lose you on this earth – God MET US RIGHT THERE in inexplicably miraculous ways to comfort us and to bring us peace. None of that comfort or peace accompanies Satan-authored thoughts of fear. I try to remember those lessons in this present day when fear and uncertainty seem to always be on the menu with each news headline. I don’t have to have it all figured out right here, right now. Sometimes that’s not even my job. It’s God’s. So today, on your birthday, in honor of you, I’m going to be still, soak in peace and TRUST that God is going to make beauty from this mess we’re all in. He always has, He always is, He always will.

I hope you’re having the grandest of parties up in heaven, your favorite song “Happy Birthday” on loop, lots and lots of hot pink, toga party baffs and milkies on tap. You are so so very missed and loved!

Here are some sweet memories of your past birthdays with us – the day you were born, your Little Girl Birthday and your Big Girl Birthday ~

(And now, as I conclude this blog post – how crazy that “Praise You in This Storm” comes on the radio in the background… )