At Ronald McDonald House again.

Yesterday we drove into the city.

I will likely never be able to do that drive without memories of my girl flooding me.

We shopped for toys for the magic room at Ronald McDonald House. We checked into our hotel and I took the big boys swimming.

No one looking at us could tell that a part of our family was missing, ashes at home on the bookshelf.

And this morning we took the kids to the paediatrician. Being in that office was very hard. I felt like I was skating on thin ice and my tears were right below the surface. About halfway through our time there the ice broke and Samuel asked me why my face was getting red. And moments later I could not hold the tears back any further.

Afterwards we went to RMH and had lunch and just spent some time here. I feel so close to Eva at the House. She spent so much happy time here. She collapsed in the bathtub here. Attempted resuscitation was done on the floor in the front hall here. Our life changed forever here.

And now here we are with our three boys, little J, a little Hope, and dreams of Eva. Treasured memories of the missing girl in our family.

While we were here a woman who works at the House came up to me and said she was so happy to see us visit. She said she will never forget our Eva. She was so happy all the time. She said Eva was one of her favourites. And when I went to the back office to give her this blog address she showed me Evas bookmark that she keeps in her office. I cannot begin to explain how meaningful it was to me that someone whose name I could not remember, but now will never forget, remembered Eva so well.

We put up our tree on the donation wall here. And we brought our toys to the magic room. And we gave them the money from Evas Ride. And we left a piece of our heart here.

And tonight I am meeting up with a mama whose baby went to Heaven only 6 weeks after Eva did. We will share coffee and tears. I am glad we are meeting at night so the darkness will obscure our tears. And onlookers will not notice the two mamas crying in the corner.