Some day . . .

May 27, 2010

Dear Harper,

I've been thinking about you in a new light lately. A friend of mine came over for dinner the other night and I was showing her pictures of you. She said something to me that, while I've heard it before, it really sunk in this time. She said that you gave up your little soul so that I could live. Your daddy said the same thing to me when we found out you had died, but I wasn't ready to hear that then. Part of my inability to hear it was that I felt like my illness was caused by you to begin with, (though I hated myself for feeling that way). But as I was looking at your picture, listening to my friend talk, I realized that you had just as much right to this life as I do. While you were a part of me, you were also your own being. Your dad and I used to talk about raising you with an understanding that you were your own person. You weren't "ours." You were just with us for us to take care of and teach for a couple of decades before you would want to move out on your own. And it's true. You were your own. And so perhaps it was your choice to help ease my pain. I don't know. Perhaps we were both victims of the same random tragedy. I don't know that either. But it did make me see you in a whole new light, thinking about it that way.

I think about you every day. Every day Harper. Yesterday I was walking on the treadmill and I started thinking about you. I was thinking about my uncertainty about what happens to us when we die. I'm okay with the uncertainty because I don't think knowing for sure would change how I live my life, but as I thought about you, it made me want to believe without a doubt that I would see you again. I so want to get to know you. This sort of settled feeling came over me then and I thought, yeah, I'll get to know her some day. One way or another I'll get to know you. There's something really exciting to me about that. I was going to say that you may not have had a fully developed body, but you had a huge spirit, and then I realized that you did have a fully developed body. It was just so tiny is all. Any yes, you had a fully developed spirit. And I believe that one day my spirit will recognize yours. And I will feel such completion and joy when that happens. I don't know the context for sure, but I do have a sense of certainty that it will happen.

I miss you. I get wrapped up in it sometimes, how much I miss you. You know, I like to think of you as a being who made a choice about giving up her life for me instead of being a victim of circumstance. It makes it all seem less tragic. But then I wonder if I believe those things just so I won't be sad, to settle the dissonance in my mind.

I love you sweet girl. Some day . . .
Mom