I Will Carry You

Dear Princess,

Just those words makes me cry my eyes out. I feel like my heart has been ripped apart…I miss you so much. How is it possible that it’s been 3 days without you when it feels like weeks already? I MISS YOU!!!! I miss everything you brought to our lives. I miss your laugh and the way it shows off your adorable dimple, I miss you coming to my bed and saying, “Good morning Mama! The sun came up! It’s time to get up! Come on!!” You have such a zest for life..I hope that never changes. I miss telling you “I love you big!” and hearing you respond, “I love you yittle, Mama!” It always made me laugh. You always made me laugh. I miss the huge smile on your face when I told you what a Princess you are…you believed it. And why shouldn’t you? You truly are. I miss holding you when you wake up in the morning because you are NOT a morning person…and neither am I. I miss laying in your bed with you and you whispering “secrets” in my ear. I miss tucking you in at night “snug as a bug in a rug”. You ALWAYS said, “Snug as a bug, Mama?”. 8] I miss your kisses…you were so free with hugs and kisses. A picture person you are not but you obliged me millions of times…even though sometimes it took a bribe with chocolate. I miss hearing you say, “Awww, Daddy!” like a 15 year old when he would tease you. I miss seeing you run screaming and giggling when Daddy chased you and Maddie all over the house being a monster. I miss walking in your room and seeing you and Maddie on her bed reading books to each other. I miss seeing you twirl each other all over the living room. I miss hearing you say, “Do you need a yittle help, Mama?” when I was doing something and you really wanted to help. I miss hearing you scream, “I’m coming baby!!!” when the baby would cry as you ran in the room to make her laugh again…anytime she cried you would tell me, “Mama, the baby needs you.” You are such a great big sister!! I miss baking with you. I miss holding your hand. I miss how incredibly FUNNY you are!! If you were here, there would be laughter again. Ironic that you brought laughter back in to our home when you came to us that night in January and then you left and took it with you again. Madison is lost without her big sister…she won’t admit it but she is. She just walks around her room and the house looking around like she can’t figure out what to do. She misses you. I miss singing. “You are My Sunshine” to you. I miss laughing hysterically when your diva sister, Madison, sings song after song after song and you have had enough and say, “That’s enough singing, Madison!!”. I miss when I would tease and tell you Daddy was so bad because he was picking on one of you and you would always say, “Daddy NOT bad, he GOOD!” You are the most loyal…brutally loyal…person I have ever met…at 5!!! The hardest thing I have ever done in my life was tell you goodbye and walk away. There was so much I wanted to tell you…but there wasn’t the time or the words. I wonder how you are doing. Are you mad at me and Daddy? Do you think we left you? Do you understand that I would have ran to Antarctica with you if I knew I would have gotten away with it?? Do you know that I can’t even think about you without losing it? I have
no idea how I am ever going to get through this. Life without you isn’t the same, baby. I know that you love us, but I hope that are not having this hard of a time as I am. I hope your days are filled with laughter, hugs, sunshine, hope, love and everything that makes you giggle. I pray for you all day, every day. I pray that you understand what is happening. I hope that you remember all of the things that you learned about Jesus. The night before you left Granda asked you what Jesus said and you replied, “He never leave us.” She asked you where He wrote your name and you said, “On my hand!" and opened your hand to her. She wrote your name on your hand and Madison’s on hers. You were upset about taking a bath before bed because you didn’t want it to come off. I had to promise you both that I would write it back on after your bath. People think you aren’t listening most of the time but they don’t know you like I do. I know you absorb every single thing around you and that you are the extremely detailed. You don’t miss anything. I wish we could rewind time back to Monday when we laid in your bed and watched movies together. Everytime you got up you would say, “Don’t move Mama! I be right back!!”. I pray that your first day of Kindergarten will be wonderful and that your teacher will be an amazing Christian woman who sees you like I do and what an amazing, smart, sweet, funny, curious, silly, wonderful little girl you are. I hope she nurtures you, looks out for you, shows you compassion, hugs you, and goes the extra mile to be kind to you. I hope you make a lot of new friends. I wish I could be there to see your first day of “big school” baby. You are so excited!! I worry that you won’t have a lunch packed…you won’t eat anything they serve in the cafeteria unless it is spaghetti. 8[ I know the things you will eat and what you won’t. I know that you don’t have a behavior problem…that you try so hard to express your feelings and get so frustrated when you can’t. I hope they see that at school. I know that you have trust issues, anxiety issues…and what terrifies you. Will they humiliate you for these things? Belittle you and not comfort you? These thoughts terrify me!! I know how to make you feel safe and know that you are okay with me. I have no idea if you are okay, happy, scared, anxious. And if you are, I can’t get to you to fix it for you!! I’m so worried about you. I know I that God is watching over you and that He loves you more than I do (which is hard for me to comprehend) and that as a child, you have your own angel watching over you. Still, I worry. You sat up in your bed the morning of court screaming. I ran to your room and picked you up and asked you what was wrong. You said, “I’m scared Mama.” I held you but I was terrified to. I know you wanted to stay with us. I meant it when I told you that you will ALWAYS be my daughter and my princess and that you can ALWAYS come back home to us. This will ALWAYS be your home. I was packing a few of your things that night and I asked Daddy about one of the items…if I should pack it or not. He said, “No, she will need that when she comes home.” And then I realized…we are all still thinking this time will be like last time. That you will come back eventually. But still it’s terrible. How will it be when we have to come to terms with the fact that we will never see you again? I can’t even wrap my mind around that…I can’t convince myself that this is it. I don’t want to. It has to end differently than this. You are my daughter. And you aren’t home. When kids are kidnapped you do everything in your power to find them. When your kid gets taken from you…you fight to get them back. When your kid runs away you go to every place you can think of to bring them back home. My daughter is gone and there is NOTHING I can do about it. Nothing. How is that possible? I fought for you. I fought for you with everything in me, but it just wasn’t good enough. I hope you know that I never gave up on you. I am still not giving up!! Not yet. Everyone things I am strong and brave. But I'm not. YOU are the brave one. You have had to be since you were a toddler. It shouldn't be that way. I miss you so much sweet girl…my heart is broken and I just wish I could hold you. I wish I could fix this for you. I love you BIG and you will always be MY little girl. I have listened to this song over and over since you left…it’s exactly how I feel…

“There were photographs I wanted to take
Things I wanted to show you
Sing sweet lullabies, wipe your teary eyes
Who could love you like this?
People say that I am brave but I’m not
Truth is I’m barely hanging on
But there’s a greater story
Written long before me
Because He loves you like this
So I will carry you
While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle
Through the coming years
I will carry you
All my life
And I will praise the One Who’s chosen me
To carry you
Such a short time
Such a long road
All this madness
But I know
That the silence
Has brought me to His voice
And He says….
I’ve shown her photographs of time beginning
Walked her through the parted seas
Angel lullabies, no more teary eyes
Who could love her like this?
I Will Carry You~Selah


Until you come home,
Mama