Friday, July 10, 2015

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LAUREN

  Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!
   There are no calories in Heaven so, you and Jesus can eat all the birthday cake and ice cream you want. I'll bet the ice cream is BlueBell, because Heaven is perfect.

   I should be used to missing you by now, but I'm not. In the wee hours of this morning, I had a dream about you. I walked into the house, and there you were, at nine years old. I hugged you as hard as I could, and said, happy birthday, sweet Lauren, and I love you. You were excited about your birthday, then you just disappeared. There were a lot of people there, and I kept waiting for you to come back. I looked out the window, every few minutes, but couldn't see you. Then, it occurred to me. The windows were too dirty to see anything. I remembered the lyrics to that John Prine song.
 Broken hearts and dirty windows
 Make life difficult to see.
 That's why last night and this morning
 Always look the same to me.

 And then, I remembered.
 I remembered praying, asking God to make it not be true. To make it go away.
 I woke up, with my fist clinched, and my arms hurting.

 It was still dark, so I stayed in bed, and thought about nine year old you.
 I thought about how, you would burst into song, at the dinner table. I used to do the same thing, when I was little, and my mother would always say, "No singing at the table!" But, she never said why. So, when you sang, I just let you. And, I laughed.
 You could twirl anything. You were always picking things up in stores and twirling them. Rolls of wrapping paper, yard sticks, nothing was safe. It was fine until you learned high tosses, and three baton.
 You left a trail of glitter and sequins everywhere.
 You were the happiest person I ever knew.
 You blessed my life, and I am thankful God let me be your mom.





 

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