Dearest little one,
Today is your due date…our due date because I marked this day on my calendar and dreamed of the joy and changes this day would bring to our lives. We would be holding you this day in our arms, marveling over your perfection and beauty, feeling our hearts swell with love and nearly burst with pride. I dreamed and wondered what all that would feel like. Yes, I was scared when I thought about the intensity of childbirth, the responsibility of parenthood, the awe of raising a little soul to know and love God as we hoped you would. However, the intense desire for you overpowered any fear, and we knew that God had given you to us for a reason. He would see us through each day; and while we can never be fully prepared for all that parenthood brings, we would do the best we could every step of the way. I marked each day and week that passed while I carried you and reveled in the delight of knowing on this day I would have my dreams fulfilled. You were due to arrive on June 19, 2020, and life was going to be wonderful with you in it!
But you are not coming. God asked for you back. I had to give you up. It’s a good thing I had no choice in the matter because I don’t think I could have been selfless enough to surrender you to the peace, love, and pure joy that you now know. I would have clutched you to myself with all my might and never have let go even if I knew the ending was best for you. I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it. Now, I can’t imagine the eternal life you are living, but I am so thankful that God received you that day. On the day that you passed from my warmth and into the splendor of Paradise, you opened your eyes to a grandeur that I will never be able to comprehend until I’m there with you. You never felt the pain, sadness, betrayal, guilt, loneliness, or decay of this world. I thank God that you only know the perfection of the next life.
There were so many things I wanted to share with you. I wanted to make memories with you, share places and experiences together. That will have to wait. However, there are some things I want to tell you. I have prayed over and over again that God will give you little messages from me–a simple “good night” and “I love you”–but today, I hope He shares this letter with you. I don’t think it would make you sad because you know that we will be together soon and you know what an amazing place you have there with Him. I think you have such a pure wholeness and a complete understanding of God’s love that sadness cannot touch you now.
First of all, I want you to know how deeply I love you and will always love you. You will always be my first. Even when we hold our firstborn, you will still be our first. When people ask me about my first child or ask how many children we have, I will always pause and think of you. Every year when this day comes around, I will honor you in my own way. You were and are so loved and cherished. You were a part of me and a part of your daddy and were special and unique. It doesn’t matter that we never saw your face or heard your heartbeat; you filled my heart from the moment I found out I was carrying you. The love I have for you is beyond the capacity of words; I only pray that God will allow you to feel it, to feel the immense, profound depth of the emotion and connection that is your mother’s love.
Secondly, you were longed for and desired. We wanted you with an intensity that led us to expend more time, energy, thought, and dedication than most couples are called to do for their child before they are ever born. We went through testing and procedures to be able to conceive you and did so willingly and happily. We would endure much more if it meant I could carry you and one day we could hold you. For well over a year and half we tried, waited, and dreamed of you. I cannot describe the joy your daddy and I experienced when we found out we were expecting you. I will never forget the tender look in your daddy’s eyes. There are few things I wouldn’t have done if it meant I could have carried you another day, another week, another month. When I knew I was losing you, I begged and pleaded with God not to take you. I wanted to keep you with me so badly! I was on my knees in agony and petition. I felt my heart shatter the moment I lost you. You meant so much to us that we will never be the same again after losing you.
My child, I am so grateful to be your mother. Your father and I were chosen specifically by God to be your parents. I was selected to carry you. I cannot explain why God gifted us with you for a short time and then asked for you back, but I am thankful for the short time with you that I had. You made me a mother; you changed me. Losing you was the most painful, most difficult thing I have ever experienced, but I want you to know that your presence and your loss have a purpose. There is beauty in the midst of the darkness left behind. Let me tell you about some of the good that has come about.
The most important thing that has happened has been the testing of our faith. Never before has my trust in God been so shaken as it has been with the loss of you, precious one. I have questioned His goodness, His faithfulness, His love. I’m not proud of some of the things I have thought or said and some of the emotions I have felt; but my faith has withstood the storms. I am His child and refuse to allow Satan to use your loss to destroy my relationship with Him. Instead, I am striving to use it to build up my faith and confidence. While I still have myriads of questions, I have learned to trust in the things that my heart knows about Him and to rely on His promises. Faith does not mean I never question or that I fully understand and accept all the occurrences in my life. Instead, it means that I walk through them together with my Father and look for the lessons He can teach me using them. It means I actively remind myself of the evidences of His love and look for them all around me on a daily basis. Furthermore, in faith I pour my heart out to Him when I am overwhelmed by more disappointment and hurt than I think I can bear because I know He cares and will eventually work all things according to His plan and purpose. And you have taught me more about how deep His love for me is than many others. I understand it better now because of you.
Dearest, your daddy has been my rock. Our paths of grieving have looked very different, and that’s ok. Men and women mourn differently. Despite the differences, he has been so compassionate, gentle, and supportive. He is always willing to listen or just hold me when I cry or need a comforting touch. A loss of a child can either destroy a marriage or make it even stronger. Ours is stronger than it has ever been. I have needed him more in the past 8 months than I have ever needed him in the 4 years of our married life together, and he has stepped up and proven that I can trust and open up to him. He is such a blessing!
And since your loss, relationships with others have changed too. I see the ones who will be there for me when life is at its darkest. I see the ones who truly try to understand our pain and sit with us in it for at least a few moments. And I see the ones who are either too frightened to step into our grief with us, too distracted, or too shallow and uncaring. Some relationships that would have otherwise remained peripheral have deepened into a friendship that I will treasure for the rest of my life. The gifts of solidarity, empathy, and sisterhood have been extended to me because of your loss and have enriched my life and warmed my heart. And in return, I hope to extend those gifts back to them if they ever need it and to others who must walk a similar path that we are walking. I now have a better understanding of how to help others who have lost babies before ever getting to hold them. I am more aware of how to approach and speak to others’ loss and grief. I see the acts of love that have meant the world to me and can offer those to others in the future if needed.
So you see, little darling, there is a lot of pain because there is a lot of love. Things feel so dark because you brought such a light into our lives, a light that left us that sad day in October. But I hope you see, sweet one, that I do not regret one minute that I carried you. Instead, I thank God for that brief time, and I thank God that He has worked great things in our life because of you. And most of all, I thank God that He is holding you, my child, when I cannot hold you; and that one day, I will step into Heaven and see you running toward me. I will finally get to know you, and we will have the rest of eternity to get to know one another and spend together. Heaven is dearer to me now because you and your siblings are there. Until we are all together, my love for you will endure!
Love Always & Forever,
Your Mother
Ghost Child 