In French they don’t say, I miss you. They say, “tu me manques” Which means, you are missing from me.
This photo is both the most precious to me, and the most haunting. She was perfect. This baby that I held in my hands. This baby that was full term and could have lived, should have lived. Babies live all the time at 34 weeks. I felt so safe at this point of the pregnancy. Even that day, I thought, she will be fine.
She had features that reminded me of both Sawyer & Max. She was delicate like a little girl should be. She had curls on her head already. And her feet were perfect and plump. I wanted to kiss those feet over and over again as we played together. I can see it crisply in my head still of how it was supposed to be.
For whatever reason feet are my favorite thing on a little baby. I have hundreds of feet pictures of my boys. I have 3 of my daughter. And I will never get more. Never see them grow from the tiny things you can't believe, into feet that carry them through life.
I wanted to hear them run around my house. I wanted to see her feel grass for the first time. Wipe the sand off them this summer. Put them in the tiny shoes I had bought for her. Walk them to school on a first day. Slip ballet slippers on them and watch them dance across the floor. I wanted to see them whisked off the floor with her first love, and hold them at the foot of her bed during her first heartbreak. To see them walk a stage at graduation. One day see them walk down an isle. And then, hold the little feet she would bring into the world.
I had dreamed all the dreams of a little girl, and her future, my future too. They’re gone now. Missing for the rest of my life.
with love, lissa