Sweet Sixteen

 Its August 4th, 2021 and we are now in the final hours of what would have been your 16th birthday. I'm staring at the clock on the wall just as I've been staring at the date on my calendar for the last few weeks knowing that this day was coming and knowing again that you would not be here with us to celebrate it.

 Time is a tricky thing.  I fail to understand how a date on the calendar can reduce me into a trembling mess of emotions and yet it does.  It always does. So I sit here crying.  Again,  I'm crying.  Because even though it seems as though I just laid my eyes on you for the first time I haven't really seen you, or touched you, or heard your laughter, or smelled your hair in so very long.  How does that work?  I cant explain it. I just miss you. So very much. I miss everything about you.  I miss everything that the last 8 years since you left could have been.  I don't even know what those days were going to hold, but I miss the possibilites of them just the same. 

Ashley Kate, who would you be at 16?  How tall would you have grown? How beautiful would your mature face be? Your hair? I'm sure it would still be long, and dark, and oh so sweet smelling. Would you have found your voice by now? I wonder what it could have sounded like if only it hadn't been stolen away from you.  Daddy and I talked about that just today.  Your voice... we barely had a chance to hear you use it. Your eyes spoke the loudest to us all.  You said so very much with those twinkly eyes of yours.  Your hands, the signs and gestures you personalized...how much more could you have said to us over the last 8 years? I lay awake just wondering, imagining, and wishing you hadn't gone.  Still I know in the deepest parts of my heart that you were only meant to be here for such a little while.  Your purpose had been determined long before you became mine.  God knew from the beginning. He had a plan for your life.  I didn't know or understand it, but I do believe that you did what you were called to do.  You lived your 8 years fulfilling that design and when it was completed He took you back unto Himself.  As much as it hurt to watch you leave, and still hurts that you are gone, I find peace in that knowledge.  In the beliefs that I hold, for if I didn't believe these things I would not have survived losing you. 

If you had been here today to celebrate I know we would have gone on a drive.  A really long one.  Just to watch you smile in our rearview mirror as the trees passed by outside your window.  I would have rolled your window down so your could have felt the wind blowing in your hair.  We would have hit those rumble strips to hear the laughter spill out of you. I'm sure daddy would have driven circles in a parking lot for you as you begged him to "swing" the car.  Oh how you loved to be in the car!  I know you wouldn't have been able to drive like most 16 year old girls on their birthdays, but I also know you wouldn't have even know you were "supposed" to.  I loved that about you.  Loved that you just loved your life with no concern for what it wasn't or what you couldn't do.  So precious it was to see the world through your eyes sweet Ash!  You were a gift to us all.  The gift of our lifetimes.  

Happy Birthday my beautiful girl.  You are so very loved today.  You are so very missed by all of us.  Forever you will remain just 8 years old.  16 was never in His plan.  I'm learning... still learning to lean into that truth.  He is in control of all of our days and He holds onto you now that we no longer can.  I love you sweet girl, Mom.

Forever loved...forever missed...forever eight.