love for a child

Many times well intentioned and otherwise loving people suggest to me that losing an older child is more difficult than losing an infant. Those same people often conclude that I should move on, be at peace with my loss or even that her death was for the best-- God's will. They pity my resolution to hold on. They do not understand why I would put myself through the pain of seeing the face of my beautiful missing child on my refrigerator, in my digital frame. Out of sympathy for me you wish I would forget her, begin a new and bright chapter in my life where I focus entirely on... the living? right? I understand, except my reality is another one. What I have omitted when I smile, even nod, is that I know I can still love my daughter. In Christ I mourn my separation from her, not a loss. I cannot see her, but she continues to exist. Like a child on a trip, or a child that goes to college, a mother loves her distant child as much as the child on her lap. The love a mother feels for her ten year child is not twice more than the love she feels for her five year old child. Mothers of miscarried children often feel so alone, unable to share the deep love they hold on to and carry with them all their lives. The love I feel for my daughter remains the same now, as when I held her, as tommorow.