The First Letter

On September 7th, we had the funeral for our daughter in our backyard in front of the pond our family helped build for us to remember her by.

Zach and I now have a spot to listen to the water and feel all the love this little girl had before she was ever born. It is beautiful and heartbreaking and perfect all at once.

I wanted to share the letter I wrote to her so that people could know how much we love her and always will:

Dear Violet,

It has been 15 days since we found out you were dead and 13 days since I gave birth to the body that was no longer you. I am only now beginning to realize that I will wake up missing you every day for the rest of my life.

I read that grief can only live where love lived first, and that’s how I know that I loved you with every fiber of my being. Grief has become an invasive species in my body, taking over every cell in my limbs, and my chest and my heart and my mind.

I have stopped asking why this happened because I realized there is no answer to that question that would be sufficient. We were the best parents to you. We loved you, we wanted you, we spoiled you, we took you to see new things. We comforted you, we spoke to you and sang to you and planned a life for us that you would have loved. There is no why that could ever erase the pain of watching that…