Happy birthday, sweet Eleanor

Today is Ellie's third birthday. It seems impossible to be three years already. The pain is still so fresh and so big. I have a hard time conceptualizing what has happened. We have our own sacred rituals and will be volunteering today at the Ronald McDonald House where we stayed, as well as delivering care packages for newly bereaved parents at the NICU where she lived six short days. She's in my heart always, but this is so damn hard!

Just like this time three years ago, I'm lying awake thinking of her. Then it was in the hospital as I was to deliver her by csection at noon. I hugged my belly and cried and hoped. Now I am happily lying next to her fussy, teething baby sister, still crying for what is gone and hoping for the future of my surviving children. Happy birthday, my sweet Eleanor.