Dearest Carter,
Happy Valentine’s Day to you in heaven! I hope you are enjoying worshipping Jesus together with all the saints. I hope you look down on me and think of me too. As I look up to heaven, I long for your dad and I to be together with you.
Today, I thought I would be dressing you in a cute little onsie that said, “My first Valentine’s Day” or maybe “I love kisses from mommy”. Instead, I went to the store and bought you fresh cut flowers and a little blue teddy bear. I made you a bouquet and took it with me to visit you, at your grave.
This time last year, mommy was looking at pregnancy tests, waiting for you. Now I look at shades of granite and drafts for your memorial marker, to honor you.
This was supposed to be our first Valentine’s Day as a family of three, hearts full of love and hope. Instead, my heart is shattered to a million pieces and my happiness destroyed.
Mommy is taking this especially hard, baby boy. Because, unlike your father, mommy made it to twenty-six without loosing anyone she deeply loved & mommy hasn’t had her heart broken since she was seventeen. Mommy thought when she married daddy, that the lonely days were over and the broken-hearted days were long gone. And even that first “heartbreak” was truly nothing compared to the weight of loosing you, baby boy. God spared mommy from grief and heartache for a time, because He knew she had years of it ahead.
Today, mommy is lonelier than ever and more broken-hearted than ever. It doesn’t mean I don’t love your daddy. In fact, I love him now, more than ever. I love him more each and everyday. But all the same, without you sweet Carter, our Valentine’s day is not even bittersweet. It’s only bitter to mourn you, our only son.
Today, I am going with your father to the doctor. There we will give each other the only gifts mommy wants to exchange with daddy this Valentine’s day, Advanced Directives.
Sweet Carter, it was so hard for mommy to make decisions about your end of life care. Your daddy and I did the best we could to listen to The Lord, your doctors, your nurses, and most importantly, to you. You told us you were tired baby and we listened, as hard as it was to hear. Still, being involved with decisions revolving around how you would leave us for heaven was the hardest thing mommy and daddy have ever had to do. I told your father that I never wanted to have to make those decisions again. Should cruel fate also threaten to take one of us to soon, our pen will decide our own fate for the manner in which we will leave this world behind.
At the doctor’s office, we are going to remember you as we talk about the test results of your precious DNA, the very strands of which God used to prepare you for heaven instead of earth. To me, it seems a big mistake. Despite my feelings, this I know somewhere deep down, that God had a purpose for your very short life, though it was not as long as I would’ve liked.
Sweet Carter, if only God would show your daddy and me that purpose! If you have an ear with God, sweet Carter, will you ask him what his purpose was? And while you’re lending the Lord’s ear, will you ask him to please send mommy some sweet dreams of you? It’s not fair that mommy only has nightmares for you, cruel visions of you still in the NICU. In the nightmares, I am helpless and no one will listen to me; I cannot get you the help you need. You slip away from me all over again and when I awake, the nightmare never ends.
While you’re still speaking to God on my behalf, sweet Carter, will you ask the Lord to send us, at the right time, rainbow babies? Siblings for you to watch over and to one day lay your father and myself down for final rest?
Today, when we discuss the results of your genetic tests with our doctor, mommy and daddy will have to make some tough decisions about how we welcome our rainbow babies to our home. Will you have many brothers and sisters by blood…or by adoption? Or by both? Will we only foster children for a time, to see the nursery empty again with no little one in our arms, once the sun has set? Will we have many children come through the door, only to give them back to their real mom and visit your grave alone?
Sweet Carter, I am praying for you to someday have many brothers and sisters, but I am not convinced my prayers of supplication reach the Lord’s ears. This is why I need you to help intervene, sweet Carter. The Lord seems to care for you, since He thought it best to spare you from this pain of mine. Even though mommy knows the Lord loves her and hears her prayers, she has come to think that no amount of praying can make God change his mind.
Sweet Carter, mommy is trying to trust the Lord, even though she is blind. They say, walk by faith when you can’t see. Faith carried me through your life Carter and I pray it carries me still in the wake of your absence. If some walk by faith, I feel as if faith and I are crawling around together, in the dark. I wait for hope in more than death, for hope in more than to be reunited with you again. Mommy has to find a way to hold onto hope in the earth again, sweet Carter. It doesn’t mean I will ever forget you or that I will ever stop loving you. Mommy just wishes the pain would soften over the years and maybe a rainbow could shine through the dark clouds to wipe your mommy’s tears?
It’s funny, Carter, the difference between your daddy and me. With the results of your genetic tests, your dad sees the glass as half full and I see it as half empty. Your dad as always been the more optimistic of the two of us. As your Auntie Laura says, at least there is even water in the glass.
I was both pleased and horrified to learn, sweet Carter, that you and mommy are more alike than I could have even thought. While I don’t share your syndrome, it surprised me to learn of all the other things we have in common. To think of all the spelling changes we share; our spelling changes are writing our story. I only wish our story were not so sad. I’d give anything to raise you with your dad, the cozy story we never had.
I don’t know why God thought I was strong enough to handle the wake of your passing. Could you please ask him for me? I felt like I was barely strong enough to handle your life in the NICU. Each day I awoke without you, I fell apart. That was when you were only about thirty minutes east on State Street. I still drive thirty minutes down State to see you; but now instead of turning right on Capitol to go hold you at the hospital, I turn left to visit you at the cemetery.
I wish heaven had visiting hours sweet Carter. I wish that my life had a happy ending. I wish that your father and I had a love story for the hallmark channel, instead of a tear-jerking tragedy such as Manchester by the Sea.
I wish Jesus would come back tomorrow and reunite our family. We all miss you so much.
They all say heaven was what was best for you. I know this, sweet Carter, but isn’t mommy allowed what’s best for her too? Why did what was best for you, have to be what was worst for me?
Everyday I wake up, I can’t even fall apart anymore. I’m just that fatigued.
My dear Carter, do I remember you as your were? Or can I only remember the pictures? My memories are slipping away. If only God could give me one more hour with you, or even one more minute. I would do my best to memorize the intricacies of your sweet little face and record all of those cute noises you used to make. After I had to give you back to God, I would use the recording to sing me to sleep, like how I used to sing you to sleep.
Mommy wasn’t ready to have an angel instead of a little boy. I wanted your decades and your years. Instead, I lived out my worst fears, and have nothing left except to cry an ocean of tears.
Remember mommy in heaven, Carter Matthew, and ask the Lord to prepare a place for your daddy and myself there.
The earth is empty without you and the sky cries. The sky is so sad, it sheds tears of snow, the same way it cried for you when they took you away, to your early grave.
Look out for mommy and help her survive. Ask the Lord to remember us and be kind to us. I love you so much, Carter Matthew, and I hope you are happy where you are. But I hope you don’t forget mommy this Valentine’s Day, Carter, because you are my sweet, heavenly Valentine, handsome boy. You are missed more than you will ever know.