My time since Gabriel's birth has been more difficult than I imagine anyone really knows. I'm very good at smiling through the pain, especially through the pain of death, but I don't know why. I've always been that way, at least since a few years ago when Death dealt its first excruciating blow. My mom died in 2005. I didn't shed a tear at her funeral. I smiled and wore a perfect face. In 2006, Death struck again. My dad died, but all that was seen from me was a sparkling smile and perfectly painted lips. So this year, as I laid my newborn son to rest, I stood at the front of the line beaming with pride, comforting the sobbing friends and family who came to pay their respects.
How could I manage that disposition? How did I carry my child in my womb knowing that any day I could wake up to find that he had fallen asleep? How did I put him in the ground just days after he was full of life inside of me? How did I continue living when my reason to live was gone?
Believe it or not, it wasn't that difficult when my baby was inside of me. I loved him too much to be sorry for who he was – or who he wasn't. I was so proud of him that I wanted him to hear me telling the world what a special boy I had. I wanted him to hear me thank God for him. There was no time to be angry with the Lord, as I only had a short time to teach my son about Jesus. Yes, I bawled and grieved for my baby's impending death – in secret. Mostly, though, my grief was secondary to letting my little boy know that everything would be alright. Everything would be just as it should be.
When you leave your house one day with a full belly and come back the next with a confused body and empty, aching arms, it isn't as easy to convince yourself to carry on for the sake of your child. Most days I told myself there was a chance he could still hear me where he was. There was a chance he was listening to how I talked about him. Maybe he was watching to see if I was right, if things were really okay, if Mommy was really okay.
Mommy wasn't okay. Mommy didn't want anything to do with anyone or anything. Mommy only wanted to be close to one person, but he was too far out of reach – so far out of reach that I thought about getting myself to him in the most unthinkable way, in a way that would never really land me in the same place as an angel. So, I did the only thing I could do to get close to my baby. I began to write letters to him.
At first, I wrote my letters in a notebook that I intended to be a keepsake. Rather than talk to my baby about my grief, I wanted to talk to him about his life. So, I started my letters telling him about the joy of his conception (in baby terms, of course). Then, I went on in my letters to tell Gabriel how very happy I was to be pregnant with him and how I looked forward to every moment of it. The time came in my letters, of course, to tell him what the doctors saw on his ultrasound – wings. I wouldn't get to keep him, afterall. I had to tell my little boy that he was going to Heaven soon. I had to let him know that Mommy was so okay with this that I would personally hand him over to Jesus when the time came.
Every night, writing these letters to my baby kept him close to me. It satisfied just an inkling of my longing for him. They kept me busy reliving his life, busy with a project that was all about him. Eventually I realized that I had more than a journal. Gabriel was giving me a special gift, making one of my lifelong dreams come true. I was well on my way to writing a book – a book about our incredible story of loving and mercifully letting go of Gabriel Nicolas.
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