The story behind the dress...

So, way back in December of 2008, when we were still living in Logan & Skyler was 1 1/2 years old, I found out I was pregnant.  Something about this pregnancy just seemed different than with Skyler's & so I was sure that it was a girl.  Not only was I sure it was a girl, but we already had a name picked out & everything, so inside me was my little Kimberly.  A few weeks later, after telling my next-door neighbor Carmen (from Peru) that I was just sure I was having a girl (and that I was right with my instinct on Skyler being a boy!), she brought me over two beautiful white dresses that her only daughter Fatima had worn (one of them handmade from her grandmother).  One of them is the dress pictured below.  I hung up those white dresses in Skyler's closet & imagined the beautiful girl that would one-day wear them...

And then, a couple weeks later, I had a miscarriage.  It was a slow, drawn-out miscarriage that had me doubting & hoping for my baby's life day by slowly passing day.  Everyday I would look at those dresses & cry aloud, "Come on Kimberly!  Don't you want to wear these beautiful dresses?  I've got these beautiful dresses just for you..."  And then I'd imagine the girl that I may never have in the the dresses that she may never wear.  Those were some painful couple of days, but I think the image of my little girl in these beautiful white dresses almost made it harder.  We moved the next week after my miscarriage down to Bountiful & I could never bring myself to tell my neighbor of our misfortune for fear that I'd feel like I should return the dresses.  And I just couldn't loose that hope that I'd been holding onto through those dresses...

Fast forward a couple of years & now here's my beautiful little Kimberly, all grown up & wearing one of the dresses I've been saving all these years.  When I look at her in that dress, all sorts of emotions come back to me, but mostly now, all I feel is gratitude.  Gratitude for my sweet daughter.  Gratitude for the chance to be her mother.  Gratitude for a loving Heavenly Father that can heal all wounds & soothe all broken hearts.  And Gratitude for a second-chance.

And now that the dress finally fits her, I'm realizing that it's not the dress at all that's the prize, but the beautiful girl within it that I love & cherish so dearly!  So thank-you, thank-you for sending me my sweet little Kimberly...