Between Bruises and Blooms

This month,

my heart remembers

how to break

and bloom

at the same time.

I watch

my two beautiful girls

grow,

laugh,

discover the world,

and I cannot help

but be grateful

for every ordinary moment

I once prayed for.

But beside that joy

walks another love.

A little girl

who should have been here,

the big sister

who exists now

only in photographs,

memories,

and the pieces of my heart

she took with her.

Ten years.

Somehow

they disappeared

in the blink of an eye,

and somehow

they lasted

a lifetime.

I no longer live

inside the constant ache

of losing you.

Life has grown

around the wound.

But every now and then,

grief finds me again,

as if no time

has passed at all.

It reminds me

that love

does not disappear

just because

the years do.

I am endlessly thankful

for my four beautiful children

who fill my days

with noise,

chaos,

and wonder.

But I will always

save a place

for the daughter

who should have been

growing beside them.

And I think

I always will.

I will always wonder

what your laugh

would have sounded like.

Who your friends

would have been.

What dreams

you would have chased.

Who you would be

today.

You may not be

in my arms,

but you have never left

my heart.

And you never will.

I hope this captures what you were feeling: not just the pain of missing MaKenna, but the quiet truth that a mother’s heart can carry joy and grief side by side.