Quinque

Quinque.  Quinque is the Latin word for five.  We don't know if Quinn is a boy or a girl, but we wanted our baby to have a meaningful name (and at least one family name), just like all of our other children.  So we named Quinn "Five" since s/he was our fifth baby, with the middle name August, a family name and also a month in which Quinn lived inside my womb.  And now it has been five years without Quinn.  It hits a little differently this year.  Quinque. 

Sweet Baby Quinn, it's been five years now. Five years without you. Five years missing you daily. Five years struggling to come to terms that your brothers will not have the baby sibling they so desire, that we won't hold another newborn or potty train another toddler or have another first day of preschool. You should be busy playing, exploring, and learning your colors, numbers, and ABCs, keeping me company one more year while your brothers are at school. I bet your favorite part of the day would be afternoon pickup when they'd come home. 

It's hard to believe you wouldn't be a baby anymore. I'm sure you'd be keeping up with your big brothers and keeping your Daddy and me on our toes. You'd be as busy as the rest of the kids, and life would be even more wonderfully chaotic. 

I miss you. We all miss you. We cling to the hope in the Resurrection that someday we will see you face to face. Until then, we keep loving you here in this broken world and rejoice that there is no pain or brokenness in heaven. 

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:13-16