Today is Maddie’s 2nd birthday.

Today, Maddie should be entering the phase of tantrums and misbehavior and mischief. She should be running around the house with sharp or forbidden objects and hiding from her mom and tormenting her dog. She should be mesmerized by Elmo and Abby Cadabby and Dora the Explorer.

But she isn’t. Because Maddie will never get to be a 2 year old. She’ll never get to throw a terrible-two style tantrum, or play with toys with small parts. She’ll never get to meet her baby sister and try to smother her for stealing the spotlight. She’ll never get to be the big sister that she was born to be.

Today, Maddie should be waking up to a big pile of presents. To bows and boxes and an Abby Cadabby birthday party. She should be overwhelmed by the shower of love from people near and far. She and her mom and dad should be spending this day, her last birthday as an only child, together as a family.

But they’re not. Because 7 months ago, Maddie’s laughter was quieted. 7 months ago Maddie’s family’s world was turned upside down. 7 months ago, Maddie passed away.

And so today, instead of Maddie awakening to a celebration, the rest of us wake up with a heaviness of our hearts, with a profound silence that her laughter used to fill. There are no presents, there is no party. This day is not what it should be.

And we are left to wonder how this happened. How we live in a world where children can die and the world can keep turning. Where a mother, my dear friend, can watch her beautiful daughter slip away and be unable to fix it. Where we can even contemplate living the remainder of our lives when hers is over.

Today I mourn for Heather and Mike, for their families. And I mourn for Maddie. For the things she never got to experience, for the day today should’ve been for her, for the wrongness of life right now.

Madeline Alice Spohr touched lives around the world. She raised over $100,000 for the March of Dimes. She inspired a charity. She did a lot of things, but most of all, she loved and was loved deeply and by more people than she ever could’ve known even if she lived to be 100.

And that love is what we have left today. That love is what brings us together. That love is what we have left of Maddie, what we have left for Maddie. It may not seem like much, but it is powerful.

You all know about my love affair with cake. And for some time now, I had planned to go to a bakery nearby and get a small purple cake for Maddie’s birthday. It just seems wrong to not celebrate today because this tiny girl was special and so is this day.

Two years ago the world met Madeline Spohr. Two years ago she fought against the odds and beat them.

Tonight I am not eating cake, because that’s not how Maddie would’ve been celebrating today. Tonight, I am eating Cream Puffs.

In celebration, in honor and in memory of Maddie.

(Picture stolen from Heather’s flickr stream)

Happy birthday beautiful girl. You are loved, you are remembered and you are missed.