My dear friend Lauren wrote this blog and today as this is posted would have been her dear Hope Zoe's 4th birthday. Happy Birthday Hope Zoe.   Please read on ....

A Sad Birthday Party

How do you throw a birthday party for a dead person?  Seems like a morbid question, but nonetheless, it is the question that has been forefront in my mind over the last few weeks.  My daughter’s birthday is coming up on May 17, but because she was stillborn, that day is also her official death day.  No one tells you that there is no category for such things in your brain; it’s very difficult to process and cope with the fact that the only significant date you have for your daughter is fraught with the worst memories imaginable.  I want to celebrate her with our friends and family, but how do you celebrate someone that most of them never knew or even glimpsed?  I want to have a birthday party, but it won’t necessarily be a happy one.  How do you invite people to such an event?