What Once Was Lost, Now Is Found

I wrote this post last year on September 10. I hurt in ways I lacked words to explain.

And then--a date you'd think I'd remember forever but for some reason I don't--it reappeared.

Eve found it, but I don't know where. I quizzed her, but she had no answers and quickly skipped off to play. After carefully tucking it in the drawer between a small blue box filled with her memories and her pewter photo album I invested all of my grief into creating, I sat on the bed and wept--tears of joy and tears of loss spilling simultaneously down my cheeks.

I still can't explain how my locket reappeared, but it's back around my neck today.

Fourteen years.

I know God has a plan for all of us, but I still wonder sometimes  . . .

As Lily, Micah, and I ate breakfast this morning, we talked about Ella. They mentioned her by name and talked of her as they would any of their siblings. Who would her friends be? And we listed a few fourteen-year-old girls we know. They then sat quietly, alone with their thoughts of the sister missing between them. My thoughts swirled as well, and the empty chair next to me suddenly felt even emptier. She would be riding carpool with these two sibs, sneaking Lily's clothes and makeup and crushing on Lily's much older, much cooler guy friends. Micah would surely have crushes on her friends just a grade older than he is, right?

Bitter yet sweet, these thoughts of what could have been.

The heart that has been glued together for thirteen years suddenly sprang open this morning on my bathroom counter. While I have other pictures (and one is always on the shelf in my bedroom), I hadn't seen this picture in over a decade.

As I looked at it, I remembered cutting the photo paper to fit inside the small indentation, worrying that I would ruin one of the only pictures I had to remember her tiny self. Weird how the world has changed--we used a film camera way back in 2002. Remember those, and how precious each image was?

Three years ago, I shared Ella's birth story, and after rereading that post, I can't believe I wrote it. Writing is a funny creature. Sometimes the words flow beautifully and perfectly from my fingers, and at other times, they get stuck somewhere between my brain and the keyboard, stumbling awkwardly onto the page in inarticulate fashion.

Today the words stumble and fall, but the feelings are the same.

Happy Fourteenth, Sis.

As Long As I'm Living,

Mom