Today we celebrate Emilia’s 5th Birthday! Five years!! It doesn’t seem possible.  It feels like yesterday I was cradling her in my arms, savoring each moment, knowing they would soon be my last.

I miss her so much! Time passes, the world keeps spinning, life brings changes – but what still and always will remain is love.  A mother’s love never ends, even when her child is no longer living.  Everyday since Emilia’s death, my love has searched beyond our world to find her and to fill the hole that has been left in my heart. 

Today began with many emotions.  March 15th isn’t just a significant day to me.  It is sacred and it is holy.  I somehow managed to feel happiness, solemn, and somber all at the same time.  This March 15th means so much more to me this year.  Three weeks ago we welcomed a baby boy into our family.  Emilia is once again a big sister! Her little brother, Owen, was born at 37 weeks.  But his due date was March 15th.  Since the beginning of my pregnancy with Owen, I found his due date to be a good omen and extremely special! I mean, what are the chances that out of 365 days in a year, your due date would fall on your big sister’s birthday?! It was no doubt a sign that she is still with us and that she was watching over her little brother during my pregnancy.

Right now I am filled with so many conflicting feelings.  Happiness for having experienced Emilia and to have her in my heart.  If I could change things in order for her to have lived, I would do it in a heartbeat! But life doesn’t work that way.  I am so grateful to be her mama.  I am so grateful for her.  And I am so glad and lucky to have been given the privilege to hold her here on earth for the short amount of time that I did.  I would not trade those moments OR her for anything! I’m also sad.  Owen is my last child.  My family is now complete.  But with one of my children missing, it will never feel complete.  My heart yearns for all four of my children here in my arms.  I’ll always feel like something in life is missing and that feeling can never be fixed.  I’ll always be missing and longing for her.

So today, I chose to feel it all.  How freeing it is to be allowed to feel happy, to feel sad, to feel confused… to feel EVERYTHING and not be expected to behave or grieve in one certain way.  Today I chose to celebrate Emilia on her Birthday and to send love her way in the best way that I could.  We laughed, we smiled, we cried, and we leaned on each other as we honored the little girl who brings so much joy into our lives! We love you, Emilia Madeleine Rose Clough and we miss you so very much! So much of who we are and what we do, we owe to you.  You make us better.  You make us want to do better! We hope you had a wonderful 5th Birthday in Heaven! May you not only feel our love today on your Birthday, but every day after too!

Each year we throw a special Birthday party for Emilia! I pick a theme and make a new cupcake from scratch that we have never tried before.  This years theme was feathers and the cupcake was Ferrero Rocher.  The first year after Emilia’s death I became enamored by bird feathers.  A couple weeks after Emilia died I came across the quote “Feathers are reminders that angels are always near.”  Now, whenever I find a feather I am reminded of her! I actually have a stash of feathers that I have collected over the years… (cause that’s not weird at all, right?!🤷‍♀️😂) Our cupcakes were delicious! They were a chocolate cupcake, cored in the center and filled with nutella, topped with a chocolate nutella buttercream frosting, and garnished with – of course! – a ferrero rocher! 🧁 The girls are repping (in the very first picture) our Emilia tshirts, while holding our very first ever door dash delivery… McDonalds! 🤣 McDonalds for the kids and a burger/reuben from a local food joint for the adults.  As you can see, the biggest partier of the group is the littlest of the bunch, Owen! Everything about the party was perfect, it was only missing one thing… the birthday girl.  Later in the day we wrote letters to Emilia, burned them, and blew them up to Heaven for her to read on her special day!