Tomorrow our little Jilli bug turns two. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around this. She’s only been home with us for four and a half months. Sometimes it feels like we just came home from India while at other times, it seems as if we’ve had her for her entire life.
In preparation to celebrate this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about all the things we’ve missed out on with her.
We didn’t hear her first words.
We weren’t there when she first sat up independently and we didn’t experience her first attempts at crawling.
My heart breaks a little as I wonder who she was walking towards when she took her first steps. Because it certainly wasn’t me. But I’m trusting she was walking toward someone she loved.
Sweet Jillienne spent nineteen months in a Catholic orphanage on the other side of the world. She was loved and adored by the nuns who cared for her. I know this because I could see their heartache as well as their joy when they placed her in our arms on that warm October day as we nervously stood in the orphanage chapel.
Jiliienne celebrated her first birthday in that orphanage.
And yes, we may have missed lots of “firsts.”
But I heard her say “mama” for the first time while we were in our hotel, still in India.
I watched her run towards her daddy for the first time while playing in the hotel lobby.
I heard her sweet giggle for the first time as she chased bubbles and played with balloons.
I gave her her first sippy cup to drink out of.
I watched in anxious anticipation as she met her siblings for the first time.
I laid her down in her crib on our first night home and gazed at her as she peacefully dreamed.
I watched her feel snow for the first time.
Yes, we may have missed many of her firsts. But we will experience so many more. And “firsts” don’t matter, in the long run.
What matters most is that we will experience her “nexts” and her “lasts.”
What matters most is that we are here to stay.
Happy 2nd Birthday to our little princess. We are overjoyed to call you ours and we thank God for allowing us to be a part of your journey.
