We had some company today.

(I made that sweet blanket, by the way. My first crocheted creation!)

I should have a slew of exciting pictures of fun between friends, but I don't.

Really, if this little girl came to your house and needed to be held, I bet you'd toss the camera aside too!

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

For more moments, look here.

With all of our weekend craziness, I missed posting about another milestone in our family.

Miss A turned nine.

We spent all day and evening of her birthday celebrating which was wonderful.

I about had a meltdown when the thought came to my mind that nine is halfway to eighteen!

It's impossible for me to mentally process how this is my girl now. This big grown up girl who loves to talk about the farm she is going to have when she is grown up and married….full of dogs and pigs and cows and children. All the animals and children are even named, but she is not sure yet of the name of her husband.

I remember this little face.

And what felt like the longest wait of our lives, when we waited to hear her first words. 

I used to dream about it. Literal, middle of the night dreams of her just speaking a single word.

One day the words came.

And now all of that feels like a lifetime ago.

I'm here with this quirky big girl who is so innocent and loving that she's nowhere near too cool for me yet. 

I know that will come, but I'm savoring now. 

Nine is a big deal. I remember very specific things about being nine. I remember what I thought of the people around me. I find myself wondering what she will look back and remember thinking of me. 

If she can't find a single other thing positive to remember about me one day, I hope she will know that I love her. So much. I pray that in the relationship between us love will cover my multitude of sins.

She has been the girl to help me grow in so many ways. Just by being herself. As I'm sure any mother would say of their first-born, her presence in my life has dramatically changed me. And I'm so thankful for that.

A woman came up to me at church recently and wanted to talk to me about Miss A.

She said she just really wanted me to know how blessed she was by her. How affected she was by my daughter's genuine love and compassion for her, a grown woman. 

It's amazing to hear of your child having such an impact on someone else's life. Exciting and humbling all at once. 

That is my little girl she was talking about. Who's slowly but surely moving on down the path to becoming a young woman. And an incredible one at that! 

It's kind of tragic to me that intense and hard circumstances tend to burn such vivid images in our minds. Or maybe it's just me. 

The happy moments…I remember…in a foggy, vague sort of way. 

But the sad, traumatic, life-changing moments….I can't ever forget. I remember details. Smells, sounds, the clothes I was wearing, that hard lump in my throat, the feeling of sitting on a cold, sterile floor.  The hard things stay in my mind in a way that takes me back, right to those moments.

Twelve years ago we had a birthday party for my baby sister. In the middle of a hospital room, with her in a little gown laying there so ill, we celebrated the big "3".

Three days later we told her goodbye.

I remember that I wore the same shirt those three days. I don't know why. It was very intentional. There was something about it that comforted me. To ignore the going on of "life" as I watched a treasured little life slowly fading. 

It overwhelmed me to be there. But I needed to be there. If it's possible to want something even though you'd rather run away from it as far and fast as you can, I wanted to be there.

I remember her sleeping. Knowing that sleep was all there would be. Soft music playing. People coming. Praying. Sitting alone with her. Telling her to go. It's okay. Go. Because they said we all needed to say that.

And she listened.

There is a joy beyond comprehension in knowing the peace and joy and life that she is experiencing now. But also, a sorrow beyond words. Still.

I've learned over the years how to set aside the memories. Because every time I let them out, I'm instantly back there; in that moment. I know that God carried all of us through those days. We are not that strong…I don't care what anybody thinks. No one is that strong.

But what I realize now, as I tell my girls about their auntie who would've been fifteen years old today, is that in setting aside those memories, I've set her aside too. 

And I don't want to do that. The most vivid memories are the most horrific ones, but there was so much more to her time with us than those days. I want to make myself remember her. The gift from God that had us all wrapped around her finger. I want to remember the joy she brought us….not the sickness that took her away. I want to remember, because I'm afraid I'm forgetting. The extraordinarily painful is overshadowing the ordinary beautiful, and the ordinary was the best part.

My brown haired, blue-eyed middle girl bears her auntie's name; I want her to know the brown-haired, blue-eyed girl who came before her. Not just know that she's gone and we miss her, but know who she was.

So, on her birthday, little things I remember about my baby sister….

She loved to sing. And dance. As soon as she could sit up she would play music on a little electric keyboard and rock back and forth to the beat.

She was a girly girl….always thrilled to dress up.

She loved Barney. As much as I couldn't stand it, she loved him.

She had a funny way of puckering up her lips, which resulted in me calling her "Duckie".

She loved to play with my make-up. And I being her teenage sister and not her mother, loved letting her play with my make-up.

She would run up and down the hall singing/shouting "I get knocked down, but I get up again…You're never gonna keep me down!" Her musical tastes I'm sure were a product of the teenage sisters.

She loved my friends. She would just want to come lay on my bed when my friends were over and listen to us talk.

She loved Jesus. There's a reason the Bible tells us to have faith like a child. It's because their faith is true, perfect faith.

She was the baby I prayed would come. For years I prayed for a new baby. One day God said yes. And she was amazing.

Join me please! If you knew her, please share your special memories of our sweet girl. Let's remember and celebrate her life together.