Merry Christmas, Abigail,

Today marks 4 months since the last time we held you, since we said hello and goodbye.  I tucked your siblings into bed the other night and Rebecca asked me to sing her song.  Each of them have their own song, that your Daddy and I have sung them since they were tiny.  Sometimes we sung them over and over to get them to go to sleep, or to stop fussing in the car when they were over whatever car trip we were on.  Britt's is "Amazing Grace."  Ruth's is "Grace Tis a Charming Sound."  Rebecca's is "Sweet Hour of Prayer." I was sad to think we wouldn't do that with you but then I was happy to think that you do have a song, "Be Still My Soul" and your Daddy did sing it to you there in the hospital room.

Merry Christmas, even if I'm not that merry this year.  I wonder do you celebrate Christmas in heaven?  Oh I know that Christmas isn't really this time a year so the season is all wrong.  And I know that eternity is without time.  I cannot truly fathom what a world without time is like.  I suppose every day (or all day?) is really a celebration of His birth, life, and atoning death.  There have been times this Christmas when I've been unable to sit down and do our Advent ornaments with your siblings.  I have made your Daddy retell some of the stories instead.  It's hard to see your absence everywhere I look.

I still miss you intensely but most days the pain isn't so acute. I like how another writer put it "like a constant melody, your name pouring through my mind, on repeat. Your memory the undercurrent of my days."  Last week, a friend of mine who was due just a few weeks before me had her little boy.  He's a beautiful little thing, but it struck me for the first time that I should be about to meet you.  I have been ignoring your due date, only thinking of time in reference to the moment we lost you.

I find my thoughts most often turn to heaven when I think about you.  I wonder what it is like there.  What is it that you see.  In 6th grade we had a project, for Mrs. Stevenson I think, in reading.  We created a book of poems and things.  We had to illustrate them too.  One of the topics was what we though would be the perfect day.  I remember drawing pictures of people having a snowball fight in swim suits.  Because the temperature was perfect, not hot and not cold, and you could do literally anything, because the snow wouldn't melt and the water was always warm.  For some reason that came to mind a few weeks ago, and I wondered is that what Heaven is like, perfect for everything?  Your brother asks alot what Heaven will be like.  What do we eat?  Are there animals?  What will we do?  Do we have houses?  Will there be toys there? I find myself unable to answer his questions, let alone my more complex ones.  What are our relationships like there?  Will we know Him as we are known, or does that verse mean that we will know everyone as He knows us, or just finally know and understand ourselves, or that we will have perfect knowledge like He has?  How is it that we will know so much and obvious have a clear understanding of the sinners we are, and yet can truely forgive ourselves and be satisfied?  Will we have fellowship with one another in Heaven, or just be together, but in individual worship and communion with Him?  How can I enjoy finally meeting you, when the focus isn't on us but Him?  This is one I wrestle with alot.

Heaven is on my mind alot since losing you and not for the right reasons.  Going sooner rather than later is more attractive now.  I suppose it isn't unlike older Church members I've heard say that they are more anxious to go than they use to be when the heartache and loss here begin to outway all they know and love that is there.  The realization that EVERYONE will meet you before me, also sometimes digs like a knife.  If the natural order of life isn't interrupted.  Your great grandparents and grandparents will be gone before me.  Sometimes I think that since eternity exists outside of time, we all sort of arrive at the same time.  That we all arrive, and then head off to pick up the rest of His people in the Resurrection.  But then I don't know.  I have always been very curious, and had a desire to learn more, about most everything but math (ha!), I suppose most of this questions I'll just have to learn to live with.

Love,
Momma