I just want to share her tonight…

I just want to share her tonight. 

I just want to share her cute little face— her chunky cheeks and wide dark eyes. I want to share the joy that radiated from her happy personality. 

David and I were looking through pictures of her tonight and stopping on a picture of her big smile after waking up, David said, “She woke up like that every morning.”

My heart is swollen and pressing against my chest so hard tonight. Swollen with the weight of wanting to share my precious baby without it always feeling so sad. Wanting to share her not because she died— but because I love her & because she (was?/is?) adorable— the way other moms get to share pictures of their babies. 

But sharing pictures of her still makes me sad— and I HATE THAT. But I can’t separate the sorrow of  her death from the joy of her life just yet. They exist inseparably together— the joy and the sorrow. 

Sixteen months since her death and I still can’t look at pictures or videos of her without sobbing and feeling the awful emptiness of losing my daughter rip my heart open. 

I keep all her pictures in one folder that I rarely open because in her beautiful little face that I love so much— is the deepest heartbreak, pain, and sorrow I’ve ever known. 

Tonight, I just want someone else to tell me they see it too— that she’s beautiful and that she’s loved and missed and that maybe its impossible to ever separate the joy from the sorrow. 

Tonight it just feels impossible to continue living when I miss her this much 💔