Laura

It's been a year.

One long, yet short, year since Laura passed away.

So. Very. Sad.


I still cannot fathom how God could take a child, especially one so faithful and devoted to Him. One whose only goal in her short life was to live, to become an adult, to drive a car, to get married, to have a baby. She will never see those things, the things I take for granted each and every day. She will forever be fourteen, her sisters will, God willing, surpass her in age. It doesn't seem right.

My sister is, understandably, having a bad day. She is still the odd man out standing on the sidelines. People do not feel that her grief should be so real and lingering because she wasn't her biological child, but my sister raised that child every other weekend and every other day since she was four years old. They formed a bond quickly and in a sense, she was her first child. My sister was a good mama to her and loved her like her own. We loved her as well, it was hard not too, she always had a kind word and a hug and a scratch for your back. She knew she was dealt a bad hand, but she took it all in stride. She hated the doctors and treatments, but that was a part of her life and she handled it. The prize at the end for all those years of pain and inconvenience should have been a brand new set of healthy lungs and a life where she could run, ride a bike, ice skate, or just sit outside without worrying about oxygen levels. Instead she lies in a fancy box at the base of a huge oak tree surrounded by other dead children. It is not right. I sat down the other day to write out a check to my sister so she could take some nice purple flowers to the cemetary on this day, but I stopped myself. I cannot celebrate this day, it's too hard still, too horrible and I am still filled with so much anger and sadness about it. I cannot imagine how her dad and my sister and even her real mom are doing today. I did decide that Laura deserved those flowers, even if she couldn't see them or smell them, but I will wait until next month on her 16th birthday, a day she looked forward to, what would have been a happy, happy day for her and maybe on that day I can smile a little picturing her taking that drivers test, barely reaching the pedals probably, big smile on her face. Do you think they have cars in heaven?