I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be.
Today, I will eat pink cupcakes with pastel butterflies on top. I will take my boys to the cemetery and we will talk about the sister they never met. I will bring a spade and a baggy of wildflower seeds, and I will plant flowers on my daughter's grave with the hope that I will see them bloom in the spring. I will love on my daughter the only way I am able in this life. And because I only knew her for a short time in my belly, and an even shorter time in my arms, I will imagine her.
In my heart, I hold several images of my daughter:
In my heart, I hold several images of my daughter:
The first image I have is of her alive in our arms, and then gone. This image is all about memory. I remember her tiny micropreemie body. So frail. So skinny… except for those round cheeks that seem to mark all three of my children as undeniably mine. Her small chest rose and fell slowly, with big pauses in between each breath. When we pressed our fingers against her, we could feel her weak heart fluttering. Her tiny hands were balled into fists, and after she died, I straightened them out and counted her fingers. I want to believe that she knew we were there, holding her, kissing her, singing songs to her, but the truth is that because her oxygen intake was so limited due to her underdeveloped lungs and infection-compromised heart, she probably was aware of very little. However, when the doctor handed her to me and told me that there was nothing they could do to save her, I reached out one tentative finger to gently touch her chest, and she moved. That memory of that small, quick movement is precious to me: in that moment, she knew I was there. She felt her mama touching her. This image I have of Isobel fills me with love, longing, and regret. This is the way I knew her . . . and I hold this memory with care, so as not to let any of it go. This is the only time I was given with my daughter, and so this is where I love her most--as she was.
The second image I have of her is not a good one. It’s the one I have when the first blanket of snow covers the cemetery ground and I picture my little girl cold and alone in her tiny coffin. When she died and we were planning her funeral, I was overwhelmed by the very thought that I must dress my child for her coffin. I was blessed to have a grandmother who thought to sew her a tiny replica of the flannel nightgowns that all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren have worn home from the hospital. My grandmother also made a bonnet, a diaper, and pair of tiny booties. My mother sewed a quilt, and Scott and I slept with it the night before we delivered the clothing to the funeral home, so that it might carry some piece of us with it. Scott cautioned me that I shouldn’t see her as she would be before her burial--that the sight of her might upset me because of all the physical changes that occur after death. So we let the funeral home dress her. And I regret that choice. I regret that I wasn't brave enough. I was--am--her mother, and I should have dressed her, made sure all was right. Now I envision my child alone beneath the ground with a crooked bonnet and an unfastened diaper. This image breaks my heart and leaves me weeping at her grave.
The third image of my daughter is that of the four-year-old she would be if she hadn’t been born early. I see her in Band-Aid commercials and playing on the playground. She is the brown-haired urchin who walks into the coffee shop with her daddy--she is the towhead in a Cinderella costume holding her brother’s hand. I see her in every little girl born in 2007. I imagine what Isobel would look like had she lived. She would be small, but she would still have those round cheeks. She would have the same brown hair and chocolate eyes that her daddy and her brothers have. Her hair would probably be wispy, like mine. I’d try to tame her hair by putting it in pigtails, but pieces would always be coming loose, and she would push them out of her face with grubby hands. He tongue would rest between her lips as she concentrated on climbing a tree or coloring a picture. She would be opinionated and busy. She would be my girl.
The fourth image is a more realistic view of what Isobel would have been like had she survived. She was so early that she undoubtedly would have some form of cerebral palsy. Whether she would walk with a limp or need a wheelchair, I don’t know. I sometimes imagine what our lives would have been like had she survived--what she would have been like, what she would have been capable of. But this image doesn’t frighten me. We would have taken her exactly as she was. We would have loved her, and we would have rejoiced in her presence no matter the state of her body.
The final image I have of my daughter is slightly more nebulous, but it most accurately reflects reality. My final image of my daughter is of her in heaven in the presence of her Creator. When I think of her this way, I don’t know what she looks like or how old she is. I do know she's no longer a frail, dying infant. That was her body as it was ravaged by the sin of a fallen world. Her body has been healed and made whole in heaven, whether that is the body of a four-year-old, or that of some ageless creation. This final image of my child is based completely on hope. I don’t know what she will look like when I will see her again, but I hope I know her. I hope she runs to me and takes me to meet her Jesus. I hope I get to hold her tightly and never let her go. I hope I finally get to be her mommy.
