A broken heart

On Thursday while doing her school work, out of nowhere my dear Gabriela looked up to the ceiling, tears in her eyes, and yelled, "I don't have my baby sister!" And she just melted into a mess of deep sobbing and endless tears. Waves of grief hit me, full force out of nowhere sometimes, but I hadn't seen one hit my sweet girl, not yet, not like this. 

We had some emergency cuddles, shared lots of tears, and so much of what she said through those tears surprised me. Not because I hadn't felt those things  before, but because my six year old has. Instead of normal first grade worries, she begs to know why, of all the people in the world, did our baby have to die? She sees children and babies when we go places, and it hurts her heart because she didn't get to keep her sister. She cried and cried about how ready we were for Simone, and how sad it was to put away all her things - the darling clothes we picked out together, her colorful cloth diapers, the baby toys and  books.  Gabriela talked about what kind of big sister she would have been to Simone. How she would have carried her around and played with her, especially at park day with our homeschool friends. 

Gabriela went to the mantle and got out Simone's box from the hospital. She wanted to look at her sister's footprints. She picked up one of the hats simone wore, and cried even more, saying she remembered how she smelled. I asked Gabriela if she wanted to keep looking through the box, because she seemed even more upset as we looked at Simone's things, but she was certain she wanted to continue. She looked at and touched the hair we kept of Simone's. And then we looked through the photos. Gabriela cried about how beautiful her sister's toes and fingers were, she said how perfect she was. 

Oh, my heart was so broken for her, for us. How difficult to comfort my baby when my heart hurts just like hers, and then more to watch her grieve so fiercely for her sister. We talked about it, I told her how grateful I was that she got to meet her sister, and how much it is okay to cry and talk about her feelings. 

Through this all, Easton climbed right on us, desperately trying to hug and kiss away our tears. A year ago, he learned how healing his hugs were, and he hasn't forgotten. 

My baby girl carries so much sadness in her six year old heart. It's hard for me to remember this sometimes. She has so much love for Simone. She won't ever forget her baby sister, or what our family experienced when we all lost a part of ourselves, nearly a year ago.