Dear baby girl,
I’m baking you a cake.
It’s a chocolate cake and I’m doing some layers of ganache instead of frosting the whole thing because it’s easier and looks okay but I promise I’ll still add sprinkles.
Because you’re two. That’s special. Special two-year-olds get sprinkles on their cakes.
I miss you. Your brother asked me about making a cake a few times today but I distracted him with other things because it was something I wanted to do alone. I put on your playlist after he went to bed and I mixed up your cake and cried a little too.
This is hard.
It’s a different hard than it was two years ago. Life moves on even without you here. What I wish everyone knew and understood, though, is that you are never not on my mind. There’s an ache that just doesn’t go away, even when things are good and happy.
And things are mostly good and happy. You have a sister now. I wish you could meet her. I wish she could meet you. Her time in my belly was terrifying and stressful and tiring and a gift. The day she came in the world was one of the best days but it reminded me of you. I was both relieved and not when she came out absent of the same dark fuzzy hair that covered your head.
I tell her about you. She points at your picture and giggles and she tries to steal your elephant but I don’t let her.
People want me to say that having her was healing. That it somehow helped mend a broken heart. I don’t really like it when they say that. She is here and you are not. Ivy is Ivy and you are you. I love her and I love you.
Your brother draws you in our family portraits, but sometimes I have to remind him. He adds a heart around you to show you are in heaven.
We’re spending a lot of time together this year. Most of it is at home. The world is crazy and somewhere during this extended time at home, people decided to stop being nice to each other. Not everyone and not everywhere, but we see it. We feel it. If you were here, I’d worry about you growing up in this. Instead I pray for your brother and sister; that they would grow up as compassionate and caring and forgiving and loving people at every age and every stage.
We do what we can to remember you and honor you. Your elephant comes along to family pictures. Ivy has a headband that matches your blankie. Your stocking is hanging up on the fireplace next to the other kids’. I have a tattoo of your happy cloud on my arm. Your dad—well, he has a lot of tattoos on his arms that remind him of you.
I admit I don’t always let myself feel all the feelings when it comes to you. Taya Josephine, I love you so much, but sometimes it hurts too badly to think that you aren’t here. The problem with that is the feelings all must eventually come out, and they do. Often when I’m unprepared for a big moment of grief.
I try to keep it inside because I’m afraid of being sucked in and staying down. There was a time when I thought I would drown in the grief and sadness.
The thing I’ve learned, beloved daughter, is two things can be true.
I can have joy and pain.
I can be thankful and disappointed.
I can be happy and grieve.
I don’t have to be one or the other. And that’s a good thing, because I can’t be one or the other anymore.
What would we do, on your second birthday, if you were here? I like to imagine your toddlerhood. You wear pigtails, obviously, and love your brother the most. You are mischievous and curious and smart. Your giggle is contagious.
We would give you presents to tear open and we’d let you eat your cake with your hands. We’d put a party hat between your pigtails and make you laugh until you had hiccups.
I’m sorry we don’t get to do that.
But what we will do, after we go to the flower store and make you a bouquet, is visit your stone. We will listen to your playlist and look through all our photos of you. Dad and I will talk to your brother and sister about you and I’ll cuddle your blanket and look at your handprints.
And then your brother will blow out two candles and we will eat the cake I made you.
I love you.
I miss you.
My special two-year-old.
My beautiful daughter.
