Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Dearest Lucy,
Today is your special day. It’s been six years now. Where has the time gone?
I thought about you as school was starting up this fall. You would have gone to kindergarten this year. A lot of my friends’ kids have started kindergarten this year or last (kids who were born about the same time as you). I often think of what your life might have been like, and what our lives might have been like if you were still here with us. I usually imagine that life with you as a happy, healthy and whole little girl. But I am reminded that your body was not right. If you had made it through pregnancy, as I was prompted by the Spirit to understand at the time of our loss, your little body would not have been developed properly. You would have had so many physical and mental problems that the pain we would have felt to see you suffer in this life in that broken body would have been much more painful for us to bear than it was for us to lose you during my pregnancy. In that regard, I suppose you probably would not have gone to kindergarten, not the way other kids do anyway. You would not have experienced school the way other kids do. You would have been different. You would have needed a lot of extra help. It’s hard to know what life might have been like with you either whole or broken. Either way, I often feel that you are not too far away and that you see us and know what we are doing, even if we can’t see you and know what you are doing. Maybe you are able to help and watch over your little sisters now where you are in a way that you never would have been able to do if you had stayed here with us in a broken body. We miss you and think about you often. We feel you are part of our family even though we don’t understand exactly how things will all work out in the end.
Tonight as Emiko was laying in bed trying to go to sleep, she wanted to know, when you come to us, if you will be able to do “tricks”. Then she demonstrated such a trick by lifting one leg into the air while balancing on her two hands and other foot on the bed. Emiko likes doing tricks these days. It was interesting to hear her speak about you tonight like a sister and friend who could have played with her and done “tricks” with her. I often think of Emiko as our “first”, but she is not. You are our first child and you prepared me to be a better mother for Emiko just as Emiko has prepared me to be a better mother for Rosie, who in turn is probably preparing me to be a better mother for other children waiting to join our family.
Poppa had to go to bed, but he wanted me to let you know how much he loves you. He thinks about you often and misses you so very much. He cries sometimes because of how much he misses you.
I miss you too. I hope you are happy and well. I hope you know how much we love you. We love you so much. So, so very much.
-Momma (and Poppa)
