That Was You

11. What's so great about 11?

Yeah, if you don't care - I get it.
  And I normally wouldn't, either.
   Except that, today, I do.

Because it's the 11th year since she came.
And made contact.

And a family.

 And a dream come true.

In these pictures, I see the first time she held Aunt Jessi's hand; the first time she met her Nana and nuzzled her cheek - as she still does today.

I regard the way she engages the world with her simple approach of love mixed with authenticity peppered with gentle compassion and quickness to giggle at all manners of humor.

If children are hope for the future, then our "ahead" will surely be better than what lays "behind" for I have met few so abidingly pleased with the white-bread, everyday pleasures of a life spent simply living.

She has grown from baby to little girl

to young woman bloomed.

She is a sister twice over.

      Part artist...

       















part dreamer...

...if you opened her mind, horses would stampede out.

        
She is an in-the-flesh reason we know blessings exist.
The first in every category we'll face together.
Our original "you and me" come to make "us".

Perfect? No.
Polished? Maybe.
Paramount? Definitely.

What's so great about 11? The Story of Grace: much in the same way she made numbers 1-10 equally brilliant. Because she's perfect and ever-pleasing and without any flaw to force constraint, not so much.

But because she came.

And made contact.

And a family.

And a dream come true.

Yes, Gracie. 

That was you.