Surfside

July 4th without Mom was just the first hurdle that month.  Friday July 8th would have been Mom's 57th birthday.  I told my doctor at my appointment on the 7th that the 8th was Mom's birthday and we all were crossing our fingers that our baby Candace could be born on the same day Mom was.  I was dilated to a 2 1/2, so my doctor stripped my membranes in the hopes of seeing me on the 8th in labor.  No such luck!  Instead, I joined Jamie, Shad & Amy, and all the grandkids for a day at the beach.  The water was warm, the sand was great, and the water was shockingly clear at Surfside that day.  My siblings and I had talked about possibly making a cake or doing something else to commemorate Mom's birthday, but it was a busy week and it just didn't happen.  So, we wrote "Happy 57th Birthday" in the sand and sang to the sky in the hopes that Mom would know we were thinking of her.