A Letter to My Lost Little One
MusiXcKaT
member
Little one...
You would have been so loved. It's impossible to put into words the longing I had to see your presence made known with just two little pink lines. The lack of you in my life has been a dark pressure weighing me down year after year, opening cracks from my heart to my soul. While your father and I waited for you I saw parts of myself revealed through these cracks--pieces of myself that I'm still not sure that I wanted to see. But all I could think is that even before you were conceived you were already teaching me things; showing me what it would be like to create, care for, and be the reason for another person's life.
Little one, you were our world long before we had even talked about your existence. Before we had even teased each other about names, before we had even involved jewelry in our eventual "official" engagement, and before wedding plans had even come into motion. The idea of you--your essence--has permeated the very air of our relationship from the day I told your father on that rickety Ferris Wheel at Wonderland, "Yes". Children were an understood part of our future.
And how could they not be? Your father is meant to be a father. His very purpose on this Earth is helping others. This is why he has a such a longing to be a firefighter. While he very much craves the adrenaline the job involves he also wants to make a difference in this world; not through some advancement in human technology, or by leading the country through politics. He wants to improve the world in the most important of ways: by helping everyday people as an everyday person. Saving kittens stuck in tress, resuscitating a child injured in a car wreck, pulling an elderly person from a burning building... He's the everyday hero that I had hoped would be your inspiration for being a good person. His love of all things nerdy and childlike are what keep him from appearing super human. These things ground him, and keep him solidly in my realm of "the real world" where I can hold him, care for him, and love him as much as I do. He would do absolutely anything to make sure that your life would be everything it could be, no matter how it affected his own life or needs. While mothers dream of such maternal clichés as rocking the baby to sleep, kissing scrapped knees from bicycle accidents, or seeing children off to their first day of school, your father dreamed of teaching you to play Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros. He dreamed of watching future Marvel movies, you next to him in a smaller version of his Captain America shirt, as captivated by its superhero action as himself. He dreamed of not only teaching you the important lessons of acceptance, perseverance, and honesty, but the equally important lessons of video game lore, comic book universe preferences, and, most importantly, fandom etiquette.
As for myself... Well, as I'm sure your father would have told you, I have never been able to decide on my own future. I'm a planner, and like things vaguely scheduled so that my A.D.D. brain can have some semblance of order. But I've never been able to plan my own life correctly. I enjoy many things, and I think that is why it has been hard to find one thing to feel passionate about for the rest of my life. There is only one thing in my life that I have EVER been certain is my absolute calling. For sometime I was sure it was music, and while music is probably secondary, my real calling is motherhood. I may not have always known it, but I was born to have children. I'm patient and kind, and know that I could produce properly raised children that would benefit society. I know I wouldn't be Pinterest-perfect mother, but I would be one full of love, laughter, song, and good intentions.
Little one... This would have been your home. We would have waited eagerly to hear your heart beat, to see you in utero, to discover your gender. I would have anxiously debated our choice for your name close to one million times before your birth, finding reasons to not use it only to realize that I love its simplicity and the way it feels in my mouth. The way that it represents our hopes and dreams for you in one single word... Your room would have been decorated in a way that made the most of our meager budget and my creativity and resources.
You would have joined our family as our first human baby, but not our first baby. Kody and Willow would be great dog siblings to you. Willow would be your biggest snuggler, curled up next to you to keep you warm, and licking your face when you were upset. Kody would be your first playmate, rolling over on the floor with you, and bounding around you wagging his stub as you took your first step. He would have let you pull on his long Cocker Spaniel ears, and held you down and kissed you like he does your father. Merlin would be wary of you at first, but would eventually learn that you were a little ball of warm and come tuck his cat feet under himself next to you.
Little one, you would be the first grandchild on my side of the family, and Raylan's first cousin on your father's. Your grandparents, on both sides, would have been your biggest fans. Ken and Paulette would love that one of their grandchildren would be able to have an engaging mother AND father. They would have smiled, and teared up at your arrival, unable to stop grinning. Paulette would have told everyone in their small town that she was a proud grandmother twice over now, showing your picture to everyone. Ken would keep your picture in his truck as he drove his deliveries. My parents would welcome their first grandchild with both joy and reluctance at first. They would feel sad that the new stage was signaling their aging, but would be overjoyed at the thought of another Gandy baby. My dad would try to be gruff and unaffected, but his emotion would have been just as genuine as anyone else's. My mother would be ecstatic at the idea of a baby, the one thing that she feels truly robbed of in her life. You would have been new life, not only in our family, but in her life and soul. She would have held you so much that your father and I would have had to request a moment with you. When you would visit he, she would have had you near her at all times offering you everything from delicious foods, to hilarious stories, to silly songs, to pure love.
Little one, this would have been your world. It isn't perfect, and it isn't the most fabulous of lives you could live. We aren't rich, and you would have had to go without every toy you ever wanted, and wouldn't get a pony for your birthday. You may have had to share a room with a future sibling, or wear hand-me-downs or used clothes. You wouldn't get a sports car for your 16th birthday, or wear top designer brand clothes in high school. But do you know what you would have had? Love. Pure, unadulterated love in heaps, mounds, bushels, tons--any measurement at all.
I don't know why you had to leave us so soon, Little One. I don't know what caused your abrupt departure from this world, or if there was something I could have done to prevent it... But I do know that the hole your absence has left in my life will never be filled correctly. While more children may come, and I hope that they do, you in particular will never be someone that I can see in this lifetime. Someday, when I see you again, I want you to know one thing: You will not have to introduce yourself to me. I have felt your presence, known your essence, and loved you since before your miscarriage. You are a part of me, and one that I will never not know.
Re: A Letter to My Lost Little One