Today was her third birthday.
And today, the mother was not okay.
She cried herself to sleep the night before, her body curled inward as if grief could be folded small enough to disappear.
She woke up and cried again, and then again, until the tears lost their sharpness but not their weight.
Each breath felt heavy, like air itself required permission to enter her lungs.
She tried to do what people always suggest.
She tried to step outside.
She tried to let the morning light touch her face.
She tried to believe that fresh air could soften the ache.
But all she wanted was to crawl back into bed, pull the blankets over her head, and pretend that this day did not exist.
Because this day was supposed to look different.
It was supposed to be balloons and frosting on little fingers.
It was supposed to be candles and laughter and a tiny voice trying to sing along.
It was supposed to be growth charts on the wall and photos taken too quickly because toddlers never stand still.
She should have been here.
She should have been blowing out candles.
She should have been growing, and laughing, and living.
The mother felt the injustice of it press against her chest until it almost hurt to sit upright.
This was not fair.
This was not the life she planned.
This was not what she imagined motherhood would feel like.
She never wanted this to be her reality.
And yet, here she was.
Breathing through a day that felt impossible.
Every corner of the house whispered her absence.
The quiet was louder than any noise.
The toys that were never played with still held space in her mind.
The clothes that were never worn felt heavier than anything folded in the drawers.
Everywhere she looked, she saw her.
And everywhere she looked, she felt how deeply, painfully, endlessly she missed her.
So today, the mother made a choice.
She stopped trying to be strong.
She stopped trying to rush the pain away.
She let herself feel it.
The heaviness.
The ache.
The love.
The longing.
All of it.
She whispered a soft greeting into the quiet room.
Happy birthday in heaven, my sweet girl.
I love you more than these words could ever hold.
Grief did not arrive all at once for this mother.
It lived in layers.
One of the hardest layers was the impossible tension she carried every day.
The tension of knowing her daughter so deeply, and yet not nearly enough.
She carried her child for forty weeks.
She learned her rhythms before the world ever could.
She felt the tiny kicks and punches that startled her in the quiet moments.
She felt the slow rolls and long stretches that made her pause and smile.
She felt the hiccups that came without warning and disappeared just as suddenly.
She memorized her heartbeat.
She knew the sound of it better than her own.
In so many ways, she knew her daughter as only a mother can.
And yet, there was a truth that cut deeper than anything else.
She never truly got to meet her.
Not in the way she ached for.
Not in the way that fills a lifetime instead of ending before it begins.
That absence became its own kind of heartbreak.
A quiet, relentless ache that followed her everywhere.
But what hurt the most was not only what was lost.
It was the wondering.
The endless, unanswered questions that replayed in her mind.
Who would she be today.
What would make her laugh.
What would her voice sound like when she was excited.
Would her hair be curly or straight.
Would she have hazel eyes, brown eyes, or something entirely her own.
Would she be a snuggler who clung tightly, or independent and curious.
Would she sleep through the night or wake with stories to tell.
What foods would she love.
What silly words would she invent.
What milestones would she race toward with fearless joy.
These questions never stopped coming.
They followed her through grocery aisles and quiet drives home.
They appeared in moments when she least expected them.
Because she loved a child she never got to watch grow.
Because she dreamed of a future that never unfolded.
And somehow, that grief became permanent.
Not loud every day, but always present.
A soft ache beneath everything else.
The kind of love that had no place to land, yet refused to disappear.
On this third birthday, the mother did not light candles.
She lit memories instead.
She honored the life that existed, even if only briefly.
She honored the bond that death could not erase.
And in the quiet of that impossible day, she allowed herself to remember.
To love.
To grieve.
And to carry her daughter forward, not in years, but in heartbeats.
