My Emerson

Sometimes I feel her, my Emerson, in the breeze catching the hair at the nape of my neck; in the warm sunshine on my shoulders, in the grass spiky beneath my feet. I think of who she might have been, what she may have looked like.

I picture her with beautiful big brown eyes, dark expressive eyebrows like Cole's, and delicate hands and feet.  I imagine her crawling around with thumping knees, pulling herself up on furniture, and practicing throwing every single book out of the book baskets. 

I think of how I would have made her little hair bows for her hair, painted her toenails, and dressed her in homemade dresses once she started walking.  How I would have French braided her brown hair as soon as it was long enough. 

I love Chase, I adore my boys with my whole heart. But I don't think that missing her, the tiny piece of my life that I never knew, detracts at all from my love for them. Rather, it adds to it, making me appreciate the fragility, secure in the knowledge that Chase is here for a very important reason. 

I think of her every day, despite the chaotic and exhausting life it is having two small children. She would have been amazing. She would have been beautiful. I know, for the rest of my life, I will wonder at her place in the world, why she isn't with us.