My letter to Aria

(this was the letter I wrote to Aria and read at her funeral)

My sweet little Aria,

How am I supposed to say to you in one letter all of the things I wanted to say to you over a lifetime?  For the last 7 weeks, you have been the first thing I think about when I open my eyes in the morning, and my last thought at night.  We gave up everything else in our life except you and Bennett, and split our time between the two of you.  Every day, I spent every minute I could with you, and it was still not enough.  It will never be enough, because now you have left this world as suddenly as you entered it. I’ll never again be able to kiss those chubby cheeks, or hear your soft snoring as we snuggle in the middle of the night, or look into those eyes of yours that always seemed to stare straight into my soul.  I have a physical ache in my heart where you’re supposed to be.  I love you more than I ever thought possible.  How am I supposed to go on without my baby?

While it doesn’t make the hurting any easier, the one thing I can find a small bit of comfort in is the absolute knowledge I have that this was heaven’s plan for you.  All anyone had to do was to just look at you to know that you were too good for this world.  All along, you and God had your own little agenda.  When I found out I was pregnant, I was so surprised that I didn’t tell anyone for weeks, including your Daddy.  I spent that whole first day praying that Heavenly Father would help me to handle all the upcoming changes “with grace.”  I remember specifically praying asking for help to be a better person, to be worthy to mother whatever special spirit he was sending to us, because this obviously was all His doing and there were greater things at hand than Daddy or I could have planned for.  We surprised everyone when we opted to not find out if you were a boy or a girl at the ultrasound.  Honestly, it just didn’t matter to me this time.  I knew from my experience with Bennett that God was very good at giving me what I really wanted instead of what I was asking for, so it didn’t matter what my preference was because whatever you were was perfect. 

Whenever people asked why we weren’t finding out the gender, I would joke and tell them that you might as well be a surprise from beginning to end.  What I didn’t know then was how many more surprises you actually had in store for us.  The surprise emergency c-section at 34 weeks made the gender surprise seem like nothing.  Then came the information about all of your health challenges.  Then the fact that you were willing to hang around for a little while until we were so head over heels in love with you that we didn’t want you to ever leave us.  Then finally, the last surprise, when I finally had the courage to look you in the eye and tell you that you didn’t need to suffer anymore - and you were gone within minutes.  You were only waiting for us to tell you it was okay to go.

I told your Daddy several times during the pregnancy that I was excited for you to be born because I was very curious to meet this baby that we knew without a doubt was meant for us, and meant to come at this time.  Aria, I have no idea why you chose us.  There is nothing special about us.  I’m not the bravest, or the kindest, or the strongest.  But maybe you knew that nobody else could possibly love you more than I do, and that was enough.  I am going to spend every minute of the rest of my life trying to be good enough for you.  I am not going to do anything to lose the chance of holding you in my arms again in heaven.  Please wait for me.  I love you so much.

Love, mommy