Happy 5th Birthday, Morris!

Morris,

Oh, how I wish you were here to celebrate with us on your 5th Birthday!  I feel so many, many emotions on the days leading up to today each year.  Today, I force myself to put all those emotions aside and focus not on the sadness, but on the beauty of you and of God's promises to us.

I was looking at a picture album the other day from your birthday.  In the pictures, we are all smiling as we hold you.  My one request to everyone that entered the room that day was that they try to be happy.  I didn't want to look back on the one and only day that I spent with you and feel nothing but the sadness and heaviness of the day.  I'll be honest with you, though...This year was the first year that I looked at those pictures, and for a moment, all I felt was angry.  I stared at each of our faces, wet with tears but holding a plastered smile. I felt like a such fraud for convincing myself that there was anything happy about your birthday; I felt silly for believing that there was anything that could overshadow the sadness we felt.

I sat with those emotions for a few minutes.  And then, I repeated a Bible verse in my head for the billionth time since you were born:

"When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy."  Psalm 94:19

This is the verse God brought to me the very morning that we found out you were gone...in fact, just an hour or so before that fateful ultrasound.  He brought it to me again the next day as we drove to the hospital to deliver you.  I love this verse that I call "Morris' verse" because it reminds me that there is joy to be found in everything that God touches.  I carried you for 8 months.  I heard your heartbeat.  I felt your kicks.  I prayed for you and with you.  I sang to you.  And on this day, five years ago, I held you in my arms, caressed a face that looked just like your Daddy's face, and kissed you sweetly on top the head.  I left that hospital a different person because of you. I became a different mother because of you.  You are my miracle. There is so much joy to be found in our story.

I am forever grateful for the precious few Morris moments I was granted here on earth, and I am overwhelmed with appreciation for the lifetime I'll get to spend with you one day.

Happy, happy birthday my sweet boy!!

Love,

Mommy