On Mila's 10th birthday.

Although I haven't written here regularly for a long time, this blog will always be special to me.

Today I don't find myself compelled to say much and that is because, for me, this blog serves its purpose. I have said what I had to say. I wrote this as a record of Mila's brief but beautiful life; and of all the experiences in the wake of her stillbirth that I couldn't allow to be forgotten, but that I also could not bear to carry myself. This was a place to set those things down for safekeeping. That brings me a lot of peace.

When I started this blog, I called it "After Mila" with the blind hope that someday, I would get to a place in my life that truly would feel like an "after." And I have. I'm here. I made it.

So today, all there is for me to say is:

Happy 10th birthday, my girl. Thank you for everything you have given me. I love you, endlessly. xo Mama

This body is not me; I am not caught in this body,

I am life without boundaries,
I have never been born and I have never died.
Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies
All manifests from the basis of consciousness.
Since beginningless time I have always been free.
Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out.
Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek.
So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye.
Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before.
We shall always be meeting again at the true source,

Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.

-- Thích Nhất Hạnh