My sweet Lucy,

Yesterday, you would have been 10 months old, my sweet girl. I am so sorry I missed writing to you, though you were on my mind all day. Sometimes it’s just hard to let the words find their way out, and difficult to express what I really need to say. I guess words are just that- words. They can have so much meaning, yet they lack the ability to truly reveal all that a soul feels. And I feel so much.

Summer has arrived, and while it’s such a relief to stop and take a breath, my heart aches to think of all that we’re missing with you right now. Yesterday was your Great Grandma’s 80th birthday party with all the family gathered around to celebrate her. It was the first time your Daddy and I have gone to a family gathering since before we lost you. I felt your absence, but also your presence somehow. In our parallel universe where we are together, I pictured you in a sweet sundress, crawling and playing in the shady grass, being passed around from lap to lap making everyone smile, your Grandma tickling you to make you giggle, holding you on my hip in the “all the grandkids” photos, and smiling a partially-toothed grin in a four-generation picture. No matter what I’m doing, I feel the loss of you. But, no matter where I’m at, I find signs of you too… in the dragonflies flitting around, in the pleasant breeze lending cool relief from the heat of the day, in the laughter of our family, in the stillness of a moment spent gazing at the blue sky. In the vast loneliness of missing you, you still manage to bring me comfort, and for that, I am always grateful to you, baby girl. I don’t know how it is possible, but I just know you are there sometimes.

I’ve had many moments of reassurance from you that it’s okay to move forward, but at the same time, I am scared. I am fearful that moving ahead means letting go of you. I am terrified that there will be fewer signs of you or that I will miss the ones you’re leaving for me. Life without you is scary, because I know now that in an instant, it can change in ways we can’t possibly imagine. But maybe it can change for the better in an instant too… I want to believe that. You help me to do that, to believe that light is always there if I’m open to it. I felt so proud when, during the last couple of days of school, several students either wrote or told me that they think I am strong and that they’re going to keep you (and the light you’ve brought to the world) in their hearts. I have often felt so weak in the past 10 months, but I know now that the strength is in my heart always because that is where you are. Your light, along with my love for you, is what sustains me.

I miss you. I still weep for you and what we’re missing together. You are still the first thing I think of when I wake, and the last thing I thing of before fading into sleep. You are still my heart’s desire. You’ll always be one of the most beautiful things that have ever happened to me, my missing piece. Thank you for being my love, my strength, my light. I love you so much, with all of my heart.

Always and forever,
Mommy