I knew this girl once.
She was happy and brave. She had a skip in her step and a song in her heart. She loved the world completely, and the world loved her right back again.
The girl grew up.
And sometimes, she felt as if the world had stopped loving her quite so much. . . or just maybe, he’d forgotten about her altogether.
The girl felt all alone.
The girl cried. She cried and she cried and she cried.
A hundred rivers, she cried to overflowing, and then she cried some more.
Then one day, the girl woke up, and she didn’t want to cry any more.
The girl wanted to laugh.
She wanted to laugh, and she wanted to sing! She wanted to skip, and she wanted to dance!
She wanted to love the world, and she wanted to show the world how to love her right back again.
The girl declared war on her hurt, and she sang as loud as she could to overcome the sound of her sorrow.
The girl had forgotten how to skip, so she learned how to RUN instead.
She ran and she ran and she ran.
She wasn’t running away from the wanting, or the anger, or the sadness, oh no! NO no no no no! She was running right over the top of it all. Showing herself that she was strong, and brave, and that she had so much fight left in her. Enough fight for all the world (and then even more left over, just in case).
The girl found her smile again. The girl found her courage.
The girl had proven that she (and you) can overcome anything in life, just so long as you stay brave and keep right on loving (and believing in) the world, no matter what.
So even though the girl knows that in a different life, on a day like today, she’d be buying balloons and baking a cake. . .
Or that in some other world, she’d be living through a cleaning frenzy, preparing for a neighborhood full of smiling faces and hours upon hours of happy celebration. . .
Or that in another life, she’d be singing Happy Birthday To You and dancing the night away. . .
She’s Ok.
Bruised, but not beaten.
Yes, today, she’s dying from so much ache. The wanting is heavy on her chest, and the hurt keeps finding it’s way to the girl’s stomach until she can literally feel the vomit rising into her throat.
Yes, she wonders what he’d look like.
She wonders how he’d sound.
She wonders how his little 2 year old fingers would feel in her hand or how his sweet head would smell as it rested upon her shoulder.
Yes, the girl has much to wonder about. . .But one thing is clear.
He’s hers, not matter what. He’s her’s forever, and though, on a day like today, she’s filled with pain so deep and so wide that no number of tears could ever hope to wash it away, the girl knows that this day will be but a moment. And one day, sooner than later, this pain, so deep and so wide that it threatens to swallow her away, will be filled with joy twice as deep as is her sorrow.
Happy birthday handsome. Mommy loves you times a MILLION.
