I sit here next to her grandparents’ Christmas tree, a cozy fire nearby. I should not be sad in a place like this, and yet sorrow finds me even when the happiest season of all encompasses me.

Next to this lighted Christmas tree, I sit in my memory today, when four months ago, I triumphantly signed papers discharging her from the NICU three days after her birth. I crawled into my hospital bed and with the biggest smile on my face placed her on my chest, thinking, “We did it. She’s all mine now.”

Hours later we got her into her first pajamas, a muted teal footy with little pink flowers on it. Were they roses or tulips? I can’t remember.  I wish I could say I had bought them specifically for her, but being the third girl, let’s be honest, her wardrobe was only hand-me-downs. 

The click of her car seat sounded like music as we buckled her in. We were finally going home. 

Two bouncing big sisters, french toast made by a sweet friend, and a little white house to hold our family of five and all the memories we were going to make, awaited us at the end of a short car ride. We made it, I thought as our two-year-old was inaugurated into the big sister club, holding our treasured girl and grinning with her cheek placed on Gemma’s. This moment is when life, joy, and completeness filled that little white house to the brim. It overflowed.

“It is finished,” I thought. Our family is completed by a little girl with a head full of glorious dark hair, and deep gray eyes that loved to peek out at the ones whom she found herself snuggling up with. 

Now, her stocking is hung at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. A candle in her honor is lit. My arms are empty.  Photos are out to tell a story of that beautiful baby girl, so loved, born to adoring parents, held by beloved big sisters and gone before she was truly known. Her giggles and preciousness aren’t held here as they should be. We are a family that will never be whole again. 

God, I miss her. This is not just a declaration, but an earnest and broken prayer of a mother sitting next to a Christmas tree.