Not Ready

I'm not ready for this.

I wasn't ready for her to leave.

I wasn't ready to be left her without her.

We weren't ready to stop being her mom and dad.

 Not ready to be finished parenting her...  Loving her...  Caring for her.

We are weeks away from her 9th birthday and I'm not ready.  I don't know how to do this.

 I'm struggling tonight as I search for words.  The right words.  My final words to her.  The last thing I will ever be allowed to do "for" her.  I've been given 21 letters.  How do I say what needs to be said in only 21 letters?

I've searched my writings, her books, her movies...all the things she loved...I can't find anything that is "Ashley" and this HAS to be "so Ashley".   It has to say something that will be fitting for the amazing life that was laid to rest behind the stone in which these words will be forever engraved.  It has to mean something because she meant something.

Everything about this task feels so very wrong.  How can this be right?   Why am I searching for a brief 21 letters to memorialize her life instead of planning her birthday party?  Why?  Its not ok.  Its not.

We have been left so confused, so hurt, and so lost.  I KNEW with every part of me that God gave her to us and asked us to parent her.  I have NO idea what He plans for us to do without her.  NONE.  It is such a lonely, isolating, miserable place to be in.

I'm not ready for this.  This final piece of laying her to rest.  Once the words have been chosen, they will be engraved, and her beautiful, precious, body that I long to hold just one more time will be moved to its final resting place.  I'm feeling the pressure to complete this and yet I'm not ready.

I can't do this.  I want to wake up and have our life back.  The life that we lived with the most beautiful girl in the world playing down the hall.  The life that was filled her laughter, her smile, and her joy.  The life that was amazing and meaningful and so full of Ashley.

We just weren't ready for this life.  The one we have been forced to live without her in it.