Forever Two:
On April 24, 2026, our world changed for a second time.
The little girl we had spent every moment loving, protecting, fighting for, praying for, and believing would come home with us didn't get to come home.
Bristol died at just two years old.
There are no words big enough for what it means to lose your child.
We had imagined an entire lifetime with Bristol.
We imagined more birthdays. More first days of school. More dancing in the living room. More dinosaurs and Abracadabras. More tractor rides with Daddy. More songs that required Mommy's hand. More “colaaas,” more “meek,” more fully dressed trips into the bathtub, and thousands of ordinary moments we never imagined we wouldn't get to have.
We thought we had time.
Instead, Bristol became forever two.
More Than Two Years
Two years could never measure Bristol's life.
You cannot measure her life by the number of birthdays she celebrated or the number of days she was here.
You measure it in the love she gave.
In the people she made smile.
In the rooms she filled with her personality.
In the songs she danced to.
In the hands she held.
In the people who loved her then and continue to love her now.
Bristol lived more life in her two years than numbers could ever explain.
She knew happiness.
She knew laughter.
She knew adventure.
She knew music.
She knew comfort.
And most importantly, she knew love.
She knew she was our baby.
She knew she had her mommy and daddy.
She knew she was loved completely, fiercely, and without condition.
The Life We Carry With Us
There is a version of our lives we will always wonder about—the one where Bristol grew up.
We wonder what she would look like.
What she would love next.
What new words she would invent.
What she would want to be when she grew up.
Whether dinosaurs would have remained her favorite or eventually been replaced by something completely unexpected.
We wonder who she would have become.
But while we will always grieve the life Bristol should have had, we are endlessly grateful for the life she did have and for every moment we were given the privilege of being her parents.
We still say her name.
We still tell her stories.
We still laugh at the things she did.
We still use her words.
We still hear songs and immediately think of her.
We still see yellow and see Bristol.
We carry her into every day that comes after April 24.
Because losing Bristol did not end our love for her.
It simply changed the way we are able to love her.
Forever Our Girl
Bristol will always be two.
But she will also always be our daughter.
Our baby.
Our fearless little girl.
Our dancer.
Our dinosaur-loving, Abracadabra-waving, tractor-riding, music-loving Bristol.
Cancer may have taken away the lifetime we were supposed to have with her, but it cannot take away the life she lived, the love she gave, or the mark she left behind.
And it cannot take away her name.
Bristol Rose Gaines.
Our beautiful girl.
Forever loved.
Forever remembered.
Forever two.