Dear daughter

Since the moment I saw that second blue line in August 2014, I've had the thought, what if I only get 3 years with her?  Usually I don't let my brain sit with that thought for long and I move on, move past, think of something else.  But it comes back.  Not all the time, but sometimes.  What if I only get 3 years with her.  That's all my mother got with me.  

Since that day in June 1986, I felt sorry for myself.  Felt sad that I was the girl without the mother.  As I grew up I learned how to avoid thinking about it.  But it comes back.  When it does, I don't let my heart feel that way for long and I move on, move past, think of something else.  

On that evening in May 2015, I started to change.  I stopped thinking only about what I had lost as a child and began to realize how much she missed as a mother.  It didn't occur to me as a girl or a young woman how much she would have wanted to be there.  I think of it now, though.  And now that I'm getting to that third year as a mother, I am finding it harder to think of something else.  What if I only get 3 years with her? 

All I want out of this life, is to see my girls grow up to be happy, in whatever way they choose to be.  I don't just them to grow up, I want to be there to see it.  I want more than 3 years.