Happy Birthday

Today you would be 37. The second my eyelids blinked open this morning, you were on my mind, and my heart was flooded with hurt and pain and all the ugly of missing someone so much you can't even find the words to describe it. How will I spend your birthday with me here and you There? I will walk the dog and cook breakfast and clean the kitchen and make beds and change diapers and check the mail and go to the store and take the kids to the harvest carnival ... and I will choke back tears and swallow the lump in my throat and ache all over and wonder around aimlessly like I'm looking for something I've lost. Because I have lost something. But I can't get it back or have it back... not yet, anyway. I will think of you all day and in every conversation with each person that does not know I am especially grieving you today. And maybe I won't tell anyone that I am. Because right now I don't want to be consoled. I don't want to think about how every one of your birthdays that goes by uncelebrated here brings me one year closer to you There. I don't want to be reminded of all the great birthdays you had here and how we celebrated. Today, I just want to be sad and miss you and maybe even silently weep on the inside all day long. I want to wallow in the missing you and the sadness of not having you here. Tomorrow I will remind myself of how much better off you are, more so than I can fathom. Tomorrow I will remind myself of the 28 healthy years I had with you. Tomorrow I will let eternity rule in my heart, knowing it will be spent with you and with our Jesus. But today, your 37th birthday, I will be sad and I will miss you worse than ever before. Happy birthday. I love you.