than his sister was the way she left.
He is taller than she, now. His muscles are stronger, shoulders broader.
He is brave, like his sister. And, handsome as well.
He is a boy. A button pusher. A fun giver.
His heart is loving, it is broken...and tender.
He's too big to kiss in public now, but lets me steal kisses at home.
He serves his maker.
He is my son.
The bigger of the littles, she is strength wrapped in a tiny package.
Holding her fears captive, she went to school today.
She is a third grade girl this year. She is eight.
Next year is forth grade. The last one her sister completed before heaven.
I wonder what strength a big sister at her side would be?
she looks like her sister. both sisters, really.
she looks like heaven to me. or maybe just a taste of it.
She has energy and drive. she will obtain her goals.
she knows what she wants
She has strength and inner beauty. She is so much older than she aught to be.
she knows truths that other little girls wonder about.
she is courage.
she is mine.
The smallest one. She went to kindergarten today. All day.
She is five now.
She speaks her mind of truths and of love.
She is kind, and loving. She is Grace.
God's Grace. His riches at Christ's expense. I can not deny this about God!
Every day that is spent with this child.
She is a busy one, filled with ideas and pours out her kisses and love.
my kitchen countertops will miss her through the day when I cook!
her heart resembles her biggest sister.
She is my baby. my joy. my last kindergartner.
she is Grace
She is the crown of my motherhood.
She is the joy of my heart.
Hers was my first day of kindergarten, and of third, but not of seventh grade.
Her last was of fourth.
I would have dropped her off today. She would have walked in with her brother,
her friend.
They always were quite the pair!
It would be our first year of high school. Ninth grade. Fifteen.
I can not imagine now.
Her skin would be dark from the sun of the summer. Her hair would be long and medium brown. Or maybe she would have chosen it short. Her legs long and lanky, I can just see them now.
We would have shopped for her shoes and her stuff that she needed to start.
I'm left to wonder what she would have picked.
She was beauty. She was strength, but also tender as little girls are.
She loved her Jesus. She loves him now.
She is radiant. Kind. loving. perfect in every way.
she is still mine.
My tears are stained as I walk away.
Each child is seated in the chairs and ready for the new year.
and, yet I feel so incomplete.
They are not all there. I'm missing one. As I always am.
it is a feeling I rarely can get used to.
Mommies are always counting. I always come up short.
I hold my tears in till I get to the car when they come flowing down my cheeks. It has been four years. And, so another school year marks the beginning of the fifth.
she is still eleven and eight days old. She never began fifth grade.
I am the mommy who left school today, and went to the grave.
It is a once foreign place, that I have come to know.
a quiet place. a horrid place. an empty place.
it is not mine.
Ashley, is mine. Heaven is mine. The pain, the tears....they are mine.
The new joy of life, the blessings in each day.....
The broken in my heart.
They are all mine.
I will soon pick them up. I will hear of their day. I am their mommy.
I am not the woman I used to be.
At times I miss her dearly.
I ask God to dress me with strength for this year.
He will.
Because He is mine.
