FIVE

Over the past few years my presence here at Little Miss Ritchie during the month of May has changed. The year after Charlotte died, I declared May to be "The Month of Chuck," filling each day with stories and photos of our sweet girl. It was hard. It was emotionally exhausting. It was just too much for my shattered heart to handle. The next year I scaled things back, only posting 5 days a week, but still trying to hold true to "The Month of Chuck" concept. Fast forward yet another year and I came face to face with a very harsh reality...I was running out of memories to share. 

Holy emotional breakdown.  

Now here we are, well into our 4th May without her, and I find myself continuing to distance myself from this space. Its not that I haven't wanted to come here to "decompress," but I've really been struggling to find the words to express the roller coaster of emotions that I've been riding. Year after year I try to convince myself that thing will finally be "easier"...that I will be able to enter May with my head held high and come out of the month relatively unscathed. Year after year I am wrong. I feel myself shutting down. I sleep less. I cry more. This year, more than any other, I've felt angry. 

Last Thursday we celebrated our sweet girl's 5th birthday.  Five years old.  Can you even believe it?  I will always wonder who Charlotte would have been at 5 - her favorites, her tickle spots, her daydreams.  And while my mental images will always result in smiles, it feels so incredibly unfair that we can only pain a picture of who we THINK she would be.  I want to KNOW her.  I want to celebrate WITH her...to give her giant birthday hugs and spoil her morning to night.  Instead, I drug myself out of bed on Thursday and celebrated the best way I knew how. 

We shared extra snuggles in bed and blew good morning birthday kisses to big sister.

We went on a small town donut date in our jams (bed head and all).

We opened our first BIG round of Books for Charley donations.

We napped. ALL of us.

We baked strawberry lemonade cupcakes from scratch, complete with pink frosting that any 5 year old girl would love.

We sang happy birthday, blew out 5 flickering candles and ate cupcakes to our heart's content.

We sent 5 pink polk-a-dot balloons to the sky, complete with birthday wishes and a whole lot of "H"s drawn by a very proud little brother.

Birthdays without her will never be "easy", but May 14th is (and will always be) a day worth celebrating. And celebrate we will. Happy birthday sweet Charley girl. We love you and miss you every minute of every day.