Love Lives On

The other day I got the call..."Kayla's stone is ready" I visit Kayla, everyday, with the exception of a few...so of course I dropped everything and went to see.

After months of back and forth communication,making sure every aspect of sizing, alignment, spacing, and design was perfect it's here....a beautiful stone, for my beautiful girl 😔💔

When I saw the stone, I got that feeling again....that feeling where I couldn't catch my breath...this was it. It was real. This is my new life that I was forced to live. I see it as a double life....torn between heaven and earth....a mother of an angel and 2 little boys.

The mother of an angel hurts...even on "good days" it is a battle that one may never understand. She cries daily, wishing that her angel were here....wishing that somehow she could go back to just being a "normal mother". She is numb, merely just existing, going through the motions to make it through each day. She is in disbelief...wondering how this could happen, not wanting to believe this happened. An angel mother feels pain, anger, powerless, and hopelessness all mixed into one, replaying the memories over and over in her head.

The mother of an angel is missing a piece of herself, because it is in heaven. Because she knows love never dies, she spends every minute of every day thinking about her angel. She is preoccupied with visiting her, making sure her grave looks up kept and filled with decorations/flowers as beautiful as she. This mother spends her time researching possible reasons, family traditions, and ways to keep her memory alive.

The other life is for the living. The two little boys that are here...one inside of her and the other in her arms. This mother is in constant worries....concerned about the "what ifs", the outcomes, the impact of this new life that has been created between heaven and earth.

This mother learns to put on the faces she needs to get through the day, but continues to hurt inside, masking how broken she really is. She cries alone, so she can face the world with a smile. This mother is exhausted from pretending to be ok, exhausted from fighting to be strong enough to make it through the day. She is challenged by being a consoler to others around her hurting, especially to her little boy in her arms.

It's a life that is challenging....always being torn between heaven and earth. Yes there will be joy again....but with that comes the grief that lasts a lifetime. The grief never goes away because "love lives on". That small saying is so powerful and a promise to my baby girl that her name, her memories, her presence will forever live on. I can only hope that her life, in the short time she was here, served to transform others. That after all the pain, we will somehow become happier, more kind, more thoughtful, and more greatful for our lives and every little thing in it ❤️