To Ramona on her first birthday

I wrote and shared the following with my online support system, a group of women who have similar stories, similar lives. I've read it at least at least dozen times and each time I feel it lacking.  I have more to say, more feelings, more love, why does it feel like it's missing something, everything? I woke up this morning, not Christmas Eve anymore, but my daughter's birth and death day, and realized nothing I feel can be put into words adequately. I can write about my grief fairly well, sometimes I feel like I really put into words how the day to day feels.  The problems with friends, work, the feelings pregnancies and infants bring to the surface, but some things are beyond explaining.  There is no way to describe my love for her, the yearning that tears my heart apart, the regrets and guilt that claw their way to the front of my mind as I drift off to sleep, destroying any hope of resting my mind for just one night.

C.S. Lewis said this about his lost love:  "Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."  That is Ramona.  She is not a tiny fragment I keep in the depths of my pocket, brought out to examine on occasion, at the 'right ' time, on the special, notable days. She is in me and about me at all times. She is like breathing, blinking, swallowing. All the things you do without thinking, that's how she lives with me. She is part of me, within me, always. There is no way to describe a love like that, it's too huge.  The best you can do is simply feel it.  I feel it today, tomorrow, infinity.  I love you, Ramona.

Dear Ramona,
Tomorrow you will be one. It is not the birthday I pictured for you. I imagined you surrounded by family and friends, laughing and squealing with your little mouth that looks just like your daddy's, unwrapping birthday and Christmas gifts. I dreamed about seeing The Nutcracker with your Aunt Jess and cousin Savannah in a few years. I smiled when I thought about your yearly daddy/daughter Christmas shopping trip and the drum kit your dad wanted to get you and your first ice skates and so much more.

This year will be silent, as silent as a year ago tomorrow at 7:51pm, when you slipped into this world without a cry.

That night a year ago, I was so afraid. Afraid to see you, afraid of my life without you in it, afraid of everything. When I saw your face, I was amazed. You were just as I pictured you, I knew you right away. Your dad and I created a beautiful, perfect little girl, death cannot change that. I cherish every precious second I was able to spend with you, forty weeks and 3 days of bliss and happiness and hopefulness. Now when I am afraid, I try to think about your face, the perfect calm I felt when I looked at you after hours of pain and sadness and fear, and you soothe me.

Tomorrow will be hard. Your family will be together, along with Aunt Jess and Uncle Lloyd and we will be missing you and Savannah, but we will also be celebrating you. You made me a mother and you made your dad a father. We will always be grateful. We will light a candle for you both, and for Wesley and all the other babies who should be here. If death is not the end, I hope you are with Savannah and others who love you. If death is not the end, I hope you are waiting for us. If death is not the end, I hope whatever comes after is where dreams come true. You are my dream, my heart, my life, my little bird.

You are our love, pure and infinite.

Love forever and ever,
Momma