Dear Dannica,
We took you home from the hospital on a sunny Saturday summer afternoon, three days after you were born. There is an image etched deep in my memory: that of you still sleeping in your infant car seat on the nursery floor while Daddy was setting up the Pack-and-Play in our bedroom where you could be next to us. I rested on the rocking recliner in this nursery that was all clean, organized, and prepped for your arrival, staring at you wrapped in your pink blanket, my heart at peace for being able to bear a baby girl to full term and actually bring her home with me.
On a shelf to my left is a green memory box for my late baby girl, Thi. The last time I left the hospital, I clutched that same memory box while being wheeled to the parking lot to go home with empty arms, your sister still in the hospital morgue, waiting for us to get things in order and collect her remains. What a surreal experience, both that and this, to be in the same room, my soul so empty and then so full.
In the days to follow, backed by postpartum hormonal crashes, I found private pockets to myself and cried. I cried when I gazed at my naked reflection in the mirror after showering, my body still bearing the fullness of pregnancy, but my stomach starting to deflate. It wasn't that I was upset over pregnancy robbing me of my thin form; on the contrary, I missed the fullness of you inside me, flashing back to a traumatic time when my body was arrested partway through a pregnancy and then deflating again. I cried when I tried to sing you lullabies that your sister never got to hear while being rocked in my arms. I cried because I knew it wasn't fair of me to expect you to fill this massive void inside me that your sister had left, that at times I gazed at you with the indifference of an injured heart instead of with the expansive, ignorant, and blind love I have forever felt for your brother Luc, before the loss of a child darkened my innocence. In my mind, I sometimes accidentally refer to you as Thi. You are such a good baby, quiet through the nights in a way your brother wasn't in the early days, often following me around the room with your eyes, sweet and not fussy. I was amazed to deserve this grace from you while working out my own emotions. All you are doing is asking to be loved. I didn't think I could both love someone and miss another all at once, both with such intensity.
You are not your sister and will never be. I know that you will teach me a different kind of love, one etched with gratitude of knowing that nothing is ever promised. One strengthened by vigilance to not take the days for granted, to not let the years slip by not celebrated and unobserved. When you have faced a loss, suddenly the preservation of memories becomes so important, that you are afraid the details will get fuzzy over the years, so you write things down and eagerly take lots of pictures to remember. We splurged and booked a photography shoot for you with local newborn photographer Gaby Clark (www.gabyclark.com). We took coveted photos of our family of four together.
We took photos to commemorate Luc becoming a big brother, that he is gentle and sweet with you in a way we could only dream of.
We took photos to celebrate you; you could not possibly know what you have done for us by choosing us to be your family.
My dear Dannica, you are my double-rainbow baby, and I will continue to ask a lot of you as you grow. I ask for your patience since you are not my first child and will by default need to share my attention, sometimes crying or waiting longer for your turn to be taken care of. I ask for your indulgence when I am missing and thinking of my angel babies, now among the air and sky, even as I feel your earthy weight in my arms, pulling me back to the here-and-now, basking me in gratitude. I ask for your love to heal me after I have traveled through a time and experience that left me so broken.
But I know you are capable of these things, my strong little girl, after you clung on to me and made it earthside whereas the two before you weren't able to do so. You are the stuff of miracles and of dreams coming true.
You were sent to us already equipped to do all of these things. You have strength, empathy, and worldly knowledge that you may not even be aware that you possess. I know this even at times I had forgotten--because for your grandparents, I am a rainbow, too.
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