Eleven Months: Remembering

I honestly have no idea what to say today. It’s hard for me to even think about today being eleven months, because all I can think about is that in one more month, it will have been an entire year since we said goodbye to the most precious person in our lives, our deeply beloved child who brought us joy we had not known before was possible. Really, what is another month in the face of such enormity?

Right this minute, I am sitting out on Hudson’s Poppy’s back porch, looking over the swimming pool where she took her first “lessons” from her daddy this time in late April nearly a year ago. We were visiting North Carolina for some law alumni events, and took advantage of the beautiful weather with some great adventures in Poppy’s pool and Hudson’s first boat ride on Poppy’s pontoon boat out on Jordan Lake. We could never have known that our dearest little girl, so doted upon by her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and so many others, would be taken from us forever a short three weeks later. As always, I am so very grateful for these wonderful memories, so shiny-bright as they are with Hudson’s effervescent spirit, and yet I am so incredibly sad that I now sit here alone, without her, in this place she once filled to the brim with so much joy.

On Poppy’s back porch in her Hudson-sized papasan chair under her Hudson-sized umbrella. 

First boat ride--she was not a fan of her “boat coat,” as we call them in our family

Lovin’ some love from Grandpa 

Peas in a pod

Driving with Poppy

One of my very favorites

I’m guessing “Ai-pane!”

“Ooh, see that over there, Grandma?!”

 

“And that there?!”

Oh, that face.

 

 Oh, that love.

Learning to kick

After her first dunking

And the pièce de résistance:

I hope that as you look at these pictures, you can feel that joy just vibrating out of your screen. I know I do. As you watch our little Hudson, at only 17 months old, embracing swimming with an enthusiasm borne straight out of that joy, I hope you have a better sense than ever of how big a spirit lived in that little body, a better sense than ever of how much we have lost. Her joy for living was unparalleled, and here, almost a year later, its absence still leaves a giant, gaping hole that will never be fully filled.

How much I miss her face. How much I miss her joy.