Today my daughter celebrates her 17th birthday, a birthday of pending adulthood the beginning of life on the road. Yet there will be no licence applied for or birthday hugs for me. Because my daughter is celebrating in heaven.

My heart is heavy today, the weight of missing drags upon it. 

I’m reminded of what is missed and what never got to be.

I’m trying so hard to focus on what we did and the memories we made, but 9 years will simply never be enough. 

I wonder what celebrations are like in heaven, do they have birthdays or is time and years past an earthly constraint? 

I wonder if someone has made her a cake, chocolate of course and are they singing her happy birthday again and again just to see the smile that lights up her face. Lights up your heart.

I wonder a lot, what does she look like, would her hair still curl around my finger? Does her blue eyes still sparkle with mischief? 

Sometimes I cannot breathe for missing my beautiful girl. My arms ache just to hold her again.

I often get lost in the anger, just so angry that I was robbed of my amazing girl. Bitter at the emptiness. 

But then I remember her, I remember my Livvy and her desire to live life to the max. Sometimes I wonder if she knew that she didn’t have forever because she packed so much in her days.

She loved people wholeheartedly, from her teachers to her sisters to us her parents. She has this way of making you feel like you were the only one in the room, as if you were so special to her. She made sure you knew she loved you. She didn’t need words her eyes were the windows to her soul, she looked deep inside of you, filling you with love. 

I am so grateful I got to be Livvy’s mom, I wouldn’t trade a moment, a minute. Even today in the minute of this extreme pain i know I would do it all again in a heartbeat. 

Yet today I’m allowing myself to be sad, allowing the waves of grief to wash over me. Allowing the missing to be.

But tomorrow I will move on, I will do what she wants me to do. Continuing her legacy of love. I will love on her sisters and the brothers she has sent to us to love. I will plan the Livvy’s smile events, our forthcoming tea party and those yet to be planned. I will continue on, being brave just as she was. Hoping and praying I’m making her proud.

Happy birthday my beautiful girl, how I wish you were here to celebrate with me. How I wish we could eat chocolate cake until we were both sick. How I wish, how I wish….

  
Happy 17th Livvy, may heaven be singing for you today. I love you my precious girl xxxxx