four years

Today would be Tori's fourth birthday. For Family Home Evening on Monday, we drew pictures for her and then bought some flowers and visited her grave. Michael drew a picture of her surrounded by lizard stickers (hey, we're using what we have on hand). He kept asking questions about how she could see the pictures if she was in Heaven, because Heaven is way up in the sky. And about what she would look like when she "comes back to Earth," and when that will happen. We've had some talks about death when Jeff's grandparents died, but this is harder. He wants to know why Tori died, and when he will die. I try to explain as thoroughly as I think a 5-year-old would understand, but it's hard sometimes.

I'm grateful to know where she is and what will happen. I'm grateful that I can answer Michael's questions. It would be so much worse to really have no idea.

I still sometimes ask myself why she couldn't stay with us. Recently I've decided it's because God knew that I would stop at three kids, and so if she stayed, I would never have had Lauren. (This conclusion is greatly influenced by my feelings of inadequacy at motherhood these days - so I don't know how much truth there is to that. But I do know that three is just about all I can handle, at least for now.)

As the scriptures say, "This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God." And this life is also the time for my family to prepare to meet Tori. Maybe by the time we have her again, I'll have this motherhood thing figured out, and I'll be better prepared to raise her.

We love you, Tori!