My #1

I was having a conversation with my daughter, Halayna, while she was sitting on my lap. We were talking about all sorts of things, nothing in peticular. She started saying something about her brother...her brother was going to do this or that. I think she was talking about the baby in my tummy. Not sure exactly. So I said to her, "you know you had a brother, right?" She said, "yeah Gabriel." I asked, "do you know where he is?" She said, "yeah, he's in Heaven." I agreed with her and then she said, "I really miss that baby." "Me too." I said.

How precious was that? It just melted my heart.

We talked some more about if the new baby is a boy or girl and what names we could name them. It got to be really silly and we were having a lot of fun.

But as I was taking a shower, I got to thinking about it. Not only are we affected by this for the rest of our lives, but Halayna will also be affected for the rest of her life. She'll have this brother she never knew or touched or got to hold. As "ripped off" as I feel, it's the same for her too.

It makes me think of the relationship with my brother and how he use to push all my buttons when we were kids. Oh, he use to irritate me so much! Of course we also had a ton of fun playing together and ganging up on my older sister.

So I feel really bad for Halayna that she's missing out on that relationship with Gabriel. Who knows, maybe she will have a brother some day...

I'm hoping and praying her loss of her brother won't affect her in a bad way in the future.

I love Halayna so incredibly much! She is just an awesome kid! Even though she drives me crazy at times... :)

Please keep her in your prayers also as it's easy to forget how much our loss affects her and her future. Thanks!