Happy 21st Birthday my beautiful girl.

This picture was taken on her 19th birthday.  By the time she got to blow out her candles we had already started to eat her cake :)

21 years ago...  

To this day I woke up at 6am and was in labor with you.  You were born on your due date exactly at 12:00pm . It’s as if you were on an agenda.  “I will be born when I’m due exactly in the middle of that day. I have things to accomplish. I don’t have much time.”

I never held a baby in my life before you, you were so beautiful, so round, with lots of hair.  The nurse said I gave birth to an Eskimo, your hair was so dark and long and thick. You had a set of lungs on you that even made the nurse run to me in the middle of the night with you. “Take her!” she said “she’s keeping the other babies awake in the nursery!” and left me there with you screaming in my arms.  It didn’t surprise me when you were in a “Screamer Band” in your teens.  

I was so inexperienced as a mother but I vowed to always do the best I could. I watched you have your first belly laugh over nothing, I watched your teeth come in, I watched you walk at nine months, I listened to your full, well spoken stories by the time you were two, I watched you figure out reading at the age of two.  You were so precocious in so many ways.  You had things to accomplish. You didn’t have much time.

I watched you as you thought deeply over events in life. I watched you cry over hurt animals. I watched you stand up for the underdogs of the world. I watched your intelligence and sensitivity take over your emotions. 

I hugged you, I kissed you, I play-wrestled with you, I played jokes on you and once in a while I yelled at you.  We rarely fought, we were so close.  I watched you go through your teenage years in amazement as to how much more stable you were than I ever had hoped to be when I was a teenager.  

I watched you become obsessed with your passions. I watched you pinch your pennies. I watched you cry over boyfriends. I watched you become a beautiful young woman.  I watched you have dreams for your future in science. I watched you struggle with being an adult. I watched you as you lay in your coffin.  I watched you as they closed the coffin over you. I felt my heart shrivel.

Now it’s your turn to watch me. You watch me cry over you and all of my losses.  You watch me laugh at silly animal videos. You watch me as I read and get inspired for my goals for my future. You watch me struggle with living without you. Maybe you chose this short life before you were born so you could watch over me in my second half of my life. From this earthly perspective it just doesn't seem right that a child should watch over her parents. However, where you are now there are no such rules of time or order; there is just love.  Where you are now you embody complete love and light and can't help but watch over me because we are forever connected through mother-daughter bond and love.

Happy 21^st birthday, my beautiful daughter, my beautiful Pumpkin. I miss you so much no words can describe.  You spent almost 21 years on this planet being my daughter and I am grateful for having that time with you.  I would rather have lost you than not to have experienced you at all but I would much rather have had you longer as my daughter than to have experienced this loss.

I send you hugs and kisses. I send you my motherly love that will never ever ever die. I miss you.

Xoxo Mom <3