Dear Olivia,

I don’t like when it feels like you’ve been gone forever. As I was digging through Sage’s closet for a shoe last night I was forced to look at your personalized luggage and a bag of baby O keepsakes. The bag is something I’ve been putting together since you were born. It includes items such as your first YO! Disabled & Proud t-shirt, the hat you wore home from the hospital when you were born and other cotton type thing that I thought you’d want as an adult or I’d want to look back on  to remember my little baby girl…my dream come true. 

The keepsake bag was a little less than half full. I sat for a moment and thought about your clothes in the dresser that I didn’t give away to Aria. They are the things you wore that always made the both of us feel happy. The drawer that use to be packed with lots of your clothes was now filled with a small pile of those  few things I couldn’t live without.

I slowly and carefully took the pile out, looked at each item, folded them up and began placing them in your keepsakes bag. Well, I guess its now just my keepsakes. A small to medium size bag full of four short years of memories. I took the handmade dress that GG made you for your second Christmas off the hanger and set inside the bag. I put your “Olivia” sweater, leggings, PJ’s and your yellow and white bathing suit that you last wore to SNAP in the bag. I put the handmade reindeer and owl beanie, (the one you wore in the backyard the week before you left us), inside it. Tears ran down my face and as I packed it all away. Your dad and brother watch and tried to comfort me as they played trains. It was hard for all three of us. In fact it made your brother tell us that he wanted to go live with grandma Donna too. It made for a long difficult night. Packing your stuff away made me feel like I haven’t seen you in so long. I don’t like that feeling. I want to feel like we were together just yesterday. 

I know Sage doesn’t understand, but hearing him say he wanted to go live with you and grandma Donna was heartbreaking. While I always want him to remember you, I don’t want him to want to leave me. He’s two and might not understand what he’s saying, but its hard to hear it because I know that if I didn’t have your brother I wouldn’t want to live at all. Of course I love your dad and I love lots of other people, but the love a parent has for their child is so much more powerful. It’s indescribable. Before I had you a friend of mine tried to describe it to me, but I didn’t get it or believe it. I didn’t get it till I had you. 

Livy, what’s it like where you are? Do you miss us as much as we miss you? 

I love you.

Love always,

Momma