Two Years After We Lost Anthony & Wesley

My baby nephews, Anthony and Wesley, would be two today. I want to think that it is strange that God would have allowed something like this to happen on Valentine's Day, but when I also think about how my Grandpa Tony died on Christmas a few years ago - his absolute, favorite holiday - it kind of makes sense that their birthday would fall on this holiday, I guess. My heart is full of so much love for Anthony & Wesley, and I celebrate their short but incredibly important lives on the day that so many in the world celebrate love. Sometimes the bigger the love the bigger the ache, too, though. I can't help but feel anger still that they didn't get to spend more time here with us. I'm not sure I will ever be able to let that go. I so badly want to hug and hold them, and I can't. Not on this earth. My heart will never be the same because of that. I also ache to think of how my brother and sister-in-law feel. How Nora and Hannah will feel when they are old enough to understand their loss.

I love my nephews so much. I look at this picture of their tiny feet and hold that image frozen in my mind as long as it will let me, like gripping to some tangible evidence of who they were and are. And I hold them tightly in my aching heart. So tightly.