Moments of Gratitude

I absolutely love this picture and the little girl in it.  She is my darling grand-nice Shay.  She is spunky, feisty, and full of life - all the qualities that I expected to see in my beautiful Willa.  I imagine she too would have been enchanted by butterflies and piles of leaves begging to be jumped in.  I loved watching the pure joy in Shay's face as she pranced around with a REAL LIVE butterfly on her hand.   Yes, my darling Shay prances (wherever she goes) because she knows she is a beautiful princess who is very much loved. What else can one do but prance with knowledge like that?

I imagine my sweet Willa is also prancing in Heaven.  She too, knows how loved she was and always will be.  I couldn't imagine ending the celebration of her life in any other way than we did.  Releasing beautiful butterflies that stayed just long enough for us to admire them and enjoy the opportunity to have one rest upon our hands until it warmed up in the sunshine and then took flight.  That is just how Willa's brief life was - a beautiful opportunity to hold and admire one of God's perfect creations just long enough for her to take flight and continue her journey.   What remains are tiny mementos, pictures, and treasured memories of snuggles and love.

Words fail me as I attempt to express gratitude from my little family for the outpouring of love and support we have always felt, but even more as we traveled a very dark and frightening road the last couple of weeks.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Prayers, donations, food in our fridge, household chores finished, kind words, and just warm embraces as you mourned with us are among the ways we have been so loved and so taken care of.  Though those things will never bring back the one thing we want the most, they have helped us cope with her absence in unspeakable ways.

Through this heartbreak, there have been beautiful moments of gratitude, and I want to recognize them all.  I want you to know it mattered to us.  I want to acknowledge the beautiful and the good that sprouts from tragedy.  I want to imagine Willa among the living, prancing children who played in the leaves and awed at butterflies in the cemetery.  I want to pause and be grateful for all of those moments - in Willa's memory.

Thank you for EVERYTHING, and for being a part of and sharing in our moments of gratitude.