Ten years old

That's how old our Katie would be today, had she lived and been born on the original due date I was given. Ten. Years. Old. Double digits, as I hear my friends say about their kids turning 10. On her way to being a (gulp) teenager.

What kind of birthday party would she be having?

Would she be best friends with the little girl who lives next door?

Would she be doing well in school?

Would she be taking figure skating lessons? Or playing hockey? (Would she be a total washout at sports, like her mother?)

Would she be a Girl Guide?

Would she like to play video games with her two older boy cousins?

Would she love to read, like her Mommy & Daddy? Would she have already plowed through Mom & Grandma's collection of old Nancy Drew books (which have no doubt mildewed by now in Grandma's basement, waiting to be passed along to the next generation)?

Would she be driving Mommy nuts by dipping into her scrapbooking supplies?

Would she beg to be taken to the next Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers concerts? (Mom never attended a concert until she was 15.)

Would she be pestering us to get a dog?

Would she have Mom's blue eyes and Dad's wonderful smile?

So many questions, never to be answered.

Tonight, dh & I are going to a memorial mass for his cousin's mother-in-law. After 10 years, I don't expect anybody there to realize the significance of this day for us. Why should this year, this day, be any different from the ones that have gone before? :(

But as the prayers for the dead are recited, dh & I will be thinking about our little girl.

Happy birthday, little Pooh Bear (well, you wouldn't be quite so little anymore... but you will always be our little girl). Mommy & Daddy love you.