Today my daughter turns three years old.
For her, today will be glitter and cupcakes and the happy swirl of special that are birthdays celebrated in childhood innocence.
For me, in my quiet before I string the banners and blow breath into the balloons it is a moment of pressing my knees to the earth in gratitude for being witness daily to beauty that rises from ashes, because with her birth came the haunting whisper of death.
She was born in my terror and they took her from me without the promise of ever seeing her warm again.
When you give birth to your only child at 25 weeks, when she weighs 1 pound 8.6 ounces and people in scrubs say “maybe” then that date on the calendar marks anniversary of both birth and trauma.
Once upon a time all I had was the faintest glimmer of hope, gripped tightly as I leaned into grace and glory and poured out my love on a baby that I couldn’t even touch.
And now she twirls on the front porch with pink balloons and I am literally watching what was once mourning turn to dancing.
I can not tell you how beautiful that is or how extravagantly I love her.
But there is much truth in that, and in the hope that writes her story.
Happy birthday, Scarlette. These have been my best three years.
