I have been thinking about Lillian a lot today. It's October 15, the day we allocate to remember all our "angel babies". Tonight I will light a candle at 7, in honor of my daughter and many other babies that are no longer on this earth. My baby girl let me know today that she's still close to me, even though she's so far away.
We started our Thursday off just like every other Thursday, at the library. At 11am our local library has a fun little storytime for babies, so I try to take the boys when we are free. We got there a few minutes early so we headed back to the kids' section to kill some time. Evan sat down to do a puzzle with me when a little girl who was maybe 1 or so, walked up to him. She leaned over and started playing with the puzzle too. I thought how sweet it was to see the kiddos interacting. Her father was close by and instructed her, "Lily, put the puzzle piece down there"
Wow! How sweet is that, her name is Lily. That made me smile thinking that was just a little "sign" from heaven. A few minutes later, another little girl and her brother comes skipping into the play area. I didn't catch her name but she was such a happy and talkative girl who couldn't be more than 6 or so. She plopped down on the couch near us and started chattering to Evan and Allan. She bounced up and down on the couch while giggling and Evan took notice of her. He looked up and said, "again!" So she started bouncing up and down again and being silly, tickling his cheeks, and trying to get him to laugh. Then she saw Allan and said, "oh he's so cute!" and tried to get him to smile too. Pretty soon, she had pulled Evan onto her lap and tried to bounce him up and down even though she was barely bigger than him. She turned to me and asked, "How many babies do you have?"
"two" I answered and pointed to the boys.
She looked around at Evan and Allan, then behind my back at Lily. "Three" she said.
I said, "I have two babies."
She seemed insistant, "three, two plus one is three"
It caught me off guard that I was arguing with a little girl over how many kids I have. She finally took my answer and moved on to find some books. I realized that even though the conversation meant something else to me, she had seen the little girl playing near us and assumed she was my daughter. She thought the little girl, "Lily" was also with me. The longer I thought about it, the more I was choking up. That cheerful, talkative, and insightful little girl was insistent that I had THREE kids, not just two. It seems to be a simple misunderstanding in communication at first, but in my heart it's so much more. It's more than the coincidence that the third child that she was counting as mine was "Lily". I want so much to be able to answer "three" to the question of "How many kids do you have?" This time, I didn't have to. This sweet girl reminded me the true answer. So, today I will breathe a little easier and remember my third precious child. Thank you anonymous little girl, you made my day.
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