Dear Baby,
Your brother's birthday was hard. I feel like, well, I felt like a failure as a mother because of the overwhelming sadness at such a joyous time! Max was a year old. Oh and what a year! Old people say "time flies" a lot, so baby, I must be getting old. Time is flying so I'm losing track of how long since I told you good-bye.
So why the sadness? I suppose it goes back to the fact that there is no light without darkness. There is no good without evil. There is no joy without sorrow. Every time I rejoice about my beautiful son, I remember you. God's plan is perfect, I know. I cannot imagine my life without my Max, yet I know if you were here I would never have had him. My human mind cannot wrap around that. It makes me start to unravel. A mother can never choose among her children, even those she has not met.
So, Baby, does that mean you were meant to be an angel from the beginning so that your brother could be with us here? Did I make a mistake in trying for a child before it was meant to be? Or was it simply the free will of nature?
There are so many questions. Still after 2 years. You have taught me about grief. I can be perfectly fine and then an unexpected trigger upsets my peace. The 22nd on the calendar. May 22nd I lost you, December 22nd was supposed to be your birthday. A round pregnant belly may remind me of the joy from your brother and sister, but sometimes it reminds me of the fear. The fear of having little control over the miracle inside.
Baby, one thing that makes grieving for you so difficult as compared to grieving a loved one you knew for longer is the sparse memories. I saw your tiny heart beating three separate days, most mommies don't get to see that when their baby is so small so often. But we were waiting to see if you would hold on. If a miracle would heal you. If the dark cloud around you would grow like it needed to for you to survive. Those are my only real memories of your life. My other memories are the ones I imagined for you. Dreams of you joining our family. Growing to make a family of your own. Those memories were not real, but I lost them when I lost you.
Baby, I love you as if you were here in my arms before you left. I know there is a reason you could not survive, even if I may never know it. I'm working to let go of any guilt I have in thinking somehow this was my fault. A mother always wants to protect her children, and I feel that I failed you in that way. I couldn't make you better. I sang to you, prayed for you, talked to you, and wept for you. I want you to know I love you. I did everything I could when you were here. I still believe I will finally get to hold you one day. I have to believe you are not alone.
Love,
Mommy
God, comfort all the women who are grieving for their babies they never met or only knew a short while. Help people that have never known this loss to understand it is a loss like no other. Hold our babies in your loving arms until we can be there to do so ourselves.
