So much changes in a decade. The trees grow, people come and go, plans are made, then destroyed, winters come and summers flow, all while time just keeps on ticking by. It’s strange to me that so much can change over the course of a decade, but yet, the day you came into our lives stays etched in my memory so vividly even after a decade has passed. For that, I am grateful. I am grateful that I still remember what you looked like, how still the world felt to me and how heavy it all felt.

Today, it doesn’t feel heavy, the world does not feel still and I still recognize you in every way. I have come to learn how to hold the sorrow and joy in perfect balance and harmony. I have come to appreciate the beauty that was beneath all of the rubble. I continue to uncover the lessons you teach. It all seems so fragmented yet united in this quilt of love that covers us – protecting us from the passage of time and the expectations of others that just don’t understand.

A decade is not a lifetime and there is much more adventure to uncover, woven into the days, months and years – however many more I may have here on this side of the universe, without you.

This year, the joy supersedes the sorrow and peace has nestled in somehow, tucking our love for you tightly underneath it’s coverage. It’s surreal to be here – to be feeling this way. To marvel at all that you have taught us, have morphed us into, have contributed to our evolution as human beings, as a unit, as a family. Today’s version of me was never a version I could have imagined on the night you were born. I would have never imagined today’s version of me being here – with you – at peace. With the only visible scars of your presence being how we love, how we embrace your infinite presence in our lives and how we share you and your lessons with others around us.

This journey, that you have taken us on, has been life changing. A journey through a Kaleidoscope of ever shifting patterns of lightness and darkness, hard edged shapes and circular patterns, which all focus in on one thing. Your love. Our love. Our purpose together.

From this place, we continue to honour you and the evolution of our journey together. I have learned to trust the journey. Trust in the love and in the purpose. Trust that in the next decade, you will reveal greater lessons that will once again twist and shift the Kaleidoscope, bringing greater joy then any of us could have ever imagined.

Happy 10th Birthday, sweet Jude!

xo mommy