Happy Birthday, darling Max

My beautiful boy,

We must celebrate another birthday without you. Another of hundreds of special occasions where we will carry memories of you throughout the day instead of a growing little boy. We tried our best to make it a good day - to think of you with a smile instead of tears, but the memories we have of you are so few and fleeting that sometimes it is impossible to hold them still enough in our minds to really look and it takes all our energy to chase them. And so we stare at your picture and try to remember the essence of you and how it felt to hold you in our arms. We love you. We miss you. We are so glad you were here, if only for the briefest moment.

All our love, forever,

Mummy, Daddy and Alice

xxxx