#7 for #2

Hi Audrey-girl...

Seven. Seven years. Seven years we have loved you and wish we had known you. Seven years we have wished you were with us and wished we knew your smile, your voice, your heart. Seven years we have missed you and didn't understand why you're gone. I know we aren't supposed to ask, but we do.

We had a big family portrait done in May. All of us, even the dogs. Such a big hole there. Daddy got so upset when we went to see them at the studio. Your absence is just so hard to handle when we are faced with big family things like that. It's not our family, not our whole family, because you are not there.

I can't believe where we have been and the things we have done and seen since you were born. Seven years seems like so much and so little all at once. I don't really know how to reconcile that. I don't know how or why time is that way; maybe that's best.

You would be seven this year. We would be celebrating first grade and sleepovers and bike riding and all the things you could do at seven that you couldn't do before. So many things we missed. So many memories lost. I hate that your birthday has become the day of ultimate sadness. I don't know what to do about that. I wish it could be a day of celebration. Instead, we get through most days for the rest of the year and instead of celebrating your birthday, we mourn your loss. We miss you and we wish you were here and the old wounds are open all over again. Your day isn't happy and fun like it should be, it's hard and sad and I hate that it is. I hate to be sad for any of my girls. I wish I knew how to change it. I'm sorry. I just don't.

I look at your sisters and I wonder how you'd fit into their group. I see Grace starting to become more of the babysitter than one of the kids playing. I wonder if you were here, would you guys have your own secret thing that you would take off and do while the Littles did theirs. I don't know. But, I wish I did.

Baby, it's another year gone. Another year that I wish I knew what you grew up to look like. Last I saw you, you looked so much like Julie. So much like Grace. Would that have continued? Would you be tall like Grace, or would you be teeny like Nat? So many questions I wish I could answer.

I miss you. I love you. Always.

Mommy