I'm having a really hard day.

At church on Sunday Hunter made this paper doll. He told me it was him. I complimented him on his artwork and told him how much I liked it. This morning he brought it to me and said he wanted to tell me about it. He again showed me the picture of him and then pulled it open to reveal two more little boys all appearing to hold hands. "See Mom, that's me in the middle" he said, "Then there's Ethan and Dylan." Trying to maintain my composure but feeling on the verge of a breakdown at this tender moment, I hugged him and told him I loved it. "But look Mom, then it can close again and fold back up to me." He closed and opened it again. "It's just like how Ethan and Dylan are with me because they are inside of me" he said slowly folding the three down into the one boy. Struggling to get out the words I said, "You're right Hunter that is exactly like it is, Ethan and Dylan are always part of you, all the time. I have always felt that they stay very close around you and I know that they love their big brother so much." Grinning he grabbed his backpack and I took them to school. I have tried to stay busy all morning, cleaning, playing with Em, baking some banana bread but I just feel off. I went in to clean the bedroom and saw the paper boy sitting on the computer desk. Now it comes, the tears. The flow of emotion with the kids at school in the quiet of my room where I can stop for a minute and feel the pain of missing my babies. My precious sons. I just hurt and know I need to let it flow out of me so I can pick up and keep on walking again. Tomorrow will be better, it always is when I have a day like this. Thank goodness these days are far and few between and often I am able to keep a very good perspective of Heavenly Father's plan. I know where they are and have comfort in this, I am so richly blessed and happy in my everyday but today this tender reminder from Hunter just struck a very special string of my heart that is reserved only for them. They are my babies, I miss them. That will never change, Hunter, Avery and Emma will miss them, that will not change. This is just hard, and enduring the waiting for them some days feels very long and very tiring. You just don't love anything the way you love your children. Hunter is so in tune with them, the moments I have felt them so close to me have been at night when Hunter was sleeping. Especially that first year I would be hurting so much, couldn't sleep and didn't know how to get a reprieve from my aching. Moments where I seriously doubted whether I could keep walking and wondered if I person could truly die from a heart that felt this broken. I would go in and my little two year old would be fast asleep in his bed, Rusty in hand donning his Lightning McQueen jammies. I would lay next to him, look at his tiny freckles and bulldog cheeks and could feel them close by. A warm peaceful feeling and I would wish that I could just lay there and feel them that close all the time. But of course the moment would pass and I would head back to my room and least feeling a little weight lifted from me if only temporarily. A renewed sense of why I had to keep walking and pull it together. For that amazing little boy laying in that bed. So many times Hunter saved me from the dark moments, reminding me that I was still a mother and had a little someone that needed me. Needed me not in millions of barely functioning pieces but needed me as a whole. They looked so much like him and since they are identical of course looked just like each other. It will get better, I'll pick myself up, but today I just need to cry. All I can say is my heart yearns for the day when the sight of my three boys standing together holding hands is real and definitely more than a paper picture.