Today we celebrated a sweet friends 60th birthday!

  I loved every minute of our time with them and yet found myself feeling just a bit sad.  As I watched their family gather round the tables and eat.  I sat with my husband and daughter and watched from a distance.  These are people I have known for years and love but they aren't my family. 

They are my best friends family. They are wonderful and kind but not mine.  They are held together by the bond that only comes from blood and birth right.

When my mom passed my family kind of dissolved. Evie will never know what having a grandma is like. Summer sleep overs, special birthday lunches, just because I love you outings.  She will have Ron and I to do the best we can but there is something magical about a grandma.  This is what I saw today...

My beautiful god daughter sitting with her wonderful grandma and my heart playing tug of war.  Being pulled between happy, because it is a beautiful relationship and heartbroken because I desperately want that for my baby. 

Time does seem to soften loss and ease the immediate pains of a mama's passing but it never goes away and tonight my heart hurts. 

People always say you can create the family you want but that just isn't true. No matter how hard you try you are always going to just be a guest in their lives...not the blood.