We Said Hello.....

At the Same Time, We Said Goodbye......

So went the chorus to a song played during a slide show at Baby Gabriel's funeral on Friday. Ugh. No one should ever, ever have to go to a funeral for a baby; those funerals shouldn't exist; they shouldn't be needed because babies shouldn't die. This little boy's parents knew from about 20 weeks that he would not live due to some severe birth defects. The pictures they showed were beautiful, and the song left me sobbing. Thankfully I can cover my mouth and sort of not breathe so that I don't make any noise. I do shake the pew, however. And it is not attractive. We were able to go to the funeral together, just the adults, since our neighbors could have the girls.

We're four years out from the pain those parents are experiencing now, but the words to that song still speak to the pain I feel. Will probably always feel, because that is exactly what we did. We welcomed our beautiful little girl around 11 p.m. tonight, and as we held her, as her Daddy bathed her and dressed her, as I and other family cuddled her, we said goodbye.

Two weeks ago when we were at a graduation open house, someone came up to me and said she visits Hope's grave from time to time and just had visited it the other day. She wasn't someone I was close to when we lived there. Our paths just never really crossed at all. It meant a lot to know that our little girl touched someone that we weren't even close to!

We visited Hope's grave again today. Miss Mouse is so impressed with the pink butterfly I put out there last time, and she still just loves "Baby Hope's flowers". She doesn't get it at all, of course, and asks regularly when we'll go to "Baby Hope's house". When I tell her Hope lives in Heaven, she wants to know where that is. Good question, Miss Mouse. Wherever it is, it is with God and it is good.....He is the only one who could love her more and better than we....