Dear Evy:

Evelyn, I can’t imagine any days harder than your birthday. I tried so hard to keep positive on that day. But in reality, it was just awful. Losing you before your first birthday brought on so much heartache Saturday. You never had a first birthday. You didn’t get a candle on your cake. We never sang Happy Birthday to you. I made a cake, but you didn’t get to eat it. I really can’t imagine anything worse than not getting the chance to celebrate your first birthday.

At 10:00, close friends and family gathered around your gravesite. We wrote messages on balloons and sent them up to the sky. We layed flowers ontop of your plot. We thought it would be appropriate to sing Happy Birthday. Wrong. Very very wrong. We actually practiced with Ava the night before, but I don’t know if it is possible to convey the dreppressing nature of it all. Signing Happy Birthday to you, our little precious baby, who you never had those words sung to you, overtop your freshly dug grave, was deeply saddening. I just never dreamt that your firt birthday party would be at the cemetery. It’s just crazy.

Luckily the Happy Birthday song was so drepressing that it made me just start to laugh and everyone else joined in. It provided a little comic relief. I honestly believe that doing this was the hardest part of everything. If we made it through that day, I believe we can make it through the rest of our days. I want to celebrate your life, but unfortunatly it was too hard to do on your birthday.

The evening ended on a positive note. We were lucky to have two great friends who were married and dedicated the mass to you, sweet Evelyn. It was so incredibley touching. But it was acutally amazing how the homily had tied directly into a church service that I attended with my dear friend Anola that same week. And as I sat next to Anola during the homily, we just looked at each other knowing that this priest was speaking straight to us. The Catholic priest and the non-denominational speaker had the same message. The speaker layed the ground work and the priest took it further.

It allowed me to pay close attention and know God was speaking to me. The priest had said one thing that I really took home. He talked about how people where necklaces that have half a heart and someone else we love has the other half. He said we all have half a heart, but the other half is with Jesus and in Heaven. I of course already knew half my heart was in Heaven, with you, but he provided me with the most beautiful image of knowing that you Evelyn have a full heart. You are complete.

Aunt Becky and Hank were here too – not sure where there picture went?