Brooke and I spent your birthday talking a lot about you - but also avoiding talking about you. Her birthday is so close to yours, and it makes it so ... complicated.

We talked about how much you wanted her to be born on your birthday and how worried I was that it might actually happen. Because I didn't want her to share her birthday with Mom! When I went into the hospital on the 30th I was upset because it was still so close. Then she was born in October (barely!) and I was thrilled. A whole different month!

As her birthday approached this week she could not stop thinking about you. Holidays trigger a lot of sadness for her now, and she immediately felt the closeness of your two birthdays. I hope as the years pass we can find a way to use your birthday as part of the way we celebrate hers ... and to move from this cloud of gloom towards more of an aura of memory.

We're still too close to celebrate these fond memories, but these are days on the calendar that you will forever tug us from the present into the past. I miss you more and more each day.