Grieving: Me not Her

One thing that has taken me by surprise on this journey has been my grief.  I'm not grieving over the life we've lost.  Not at all. I'm grieving over the time we missed.  I look at Jelly and I am overwhelmed with how blessed we are to be her parents.  Don't get me wrong, I feel the same about PB, but I grieve that PB wasn't with us when she was 4.  Yes, we did miss the first 10 months of Jelly's life.  And I had to grieve over that, too.  But I missed the past 13 YEARS of PB life.  I wasn't there to comfort her when she had the stomach bug.  I missed tending to her when she got the chicken pox. I'm sad I wasn't there when she was so sick for two MONTHS that the teachers told her she was lucky to survive.  Yes, she was that sick.  She did not know what was wrong, but she was in isolation.  In fact, there was only one girl who was willing to play with her as she wasn't afraid to get whatever PB had.  Boy, that breaks my heart.  I stare at Jelly's face while she sleeps peacefully in my arms, and I grieve over not having had that pleasure with PB.  My heart overflows with love for Jelly.  I love PB.  I really, truly do.  I'm completely overwhelmed at what God has done in her life without us.  I'm overwhelmed that WE get to be her forever family.  God has blessed me SO MUCH with two amazing girls.  And my love for PB continues to grow.  My favorite part of the day is bedtime.  Not just because I finally get to fall into bed (and maybe KC & I have some time to talk about day/week/future), but because I get to hug PB and kiss her on the head.  I can sometimes squeeze in a hug here or there, but I ALWAYS get one at bedtime.  In fact, the other day I had to run some errands after dinner, and I was honestly sad that I was going to miss giving her my nighttime hug/kisses.  I hoped she would still be up when I got home, but she had gone to bed (she often goes to bed very early if its just KC at home).

We've made such progress in the six weeks we've been a family of 4.  And I look forward to what the future holds for her.  For us.  I do get tired of the complaining how hot it is...after all it is summer.  But, that's probably the typical 13 year old behavior.  I'm so glad that God brought PB to us.