Remembering Mayah

One year ago today, our daughter's spirit silently yet miraculously left this world. It's amazing to me that this happens every day....souls ascending into eternity... while we shop for shoes and decide what to have for dinner. As others I'm sure can attest, losing a child makes you think a WHOLE lot about heaven. The trouble is, we don't know much about it. Do we go to heaven right after we die, or are we in some spiritual slumber until judgment day? I know we are not married in heaven...and somehow the relationships that we experience there will be even better. Now that's hard to believe. I do believe the Bible suggests that those who have died are in some way cognizant of what's going on down here. So how do we really honor Mayah? Do we celebrate her birth date or death date, or both? Should we feel happy or sad? Do we talk about her out loud? Besides, what can we really say? The only real "memories" we have were our dreams for her future. It's incredibly frustrating to me that she lived long enough to have a personality, a favorite toy, a bed time routine, but we never got to experience those things with her. Some moments I can be so totally surrendered with God's plan for us and for her, and then other times I'm so angry. Angry that God permitted this tremendous buildup of love and emotions for her over a period of 9 months, and then allowed her to die within weeks of when we would finally meet. And please don't tell me it was less painful that way. If you could only hold your child once, would it really be more painful than never holding them at all? Sometimes I feel like I'm not allowed to say that I've lost a child....like I have to go on to qualify it, "Well, I never actually met her and she never lived in my house." How strange does that sound. Sometimes it's just way too complicated to explain to people I will probably never see again. But failing to mention her feels equally wrong. To say that I only have two children, or that Alina was our only adoption. This is not an accurate picture of things. She was our child. We signed a legal document stating our intent to adopt her. We just never got a chance to bring her home. When I first thought about writing something on this day, I wanted it to be positive and uplifting. I wanted to talk about all the things she has taught me, about the fundraiser we are doing in her honor, and about my prayers for her story to inspire many people to adopt. And there will be a time to write about those things. But not today. Today I want to be sad. Today I feel like it's not fair. And today I miss her terribly.