Dear Elizabeth Josephine and Dakota James
I'm sorry I never got to hold you and love on you as I dreamed I would. I'm sorry I wasted my childbearing years trying to honor a figment of my imagination that I called god, believing he would honor me with the 'desires of my heart' - you. He didn't and you never will be.
Just know I have cried countless tears longing to hold you and watch you both grow into amazing adults. I named you when I was just a young girl with dreams of being a wife and mother. The first man I thought would be your dad turned out to be a terrible person and would have been a dead beat dad. I still regret that he didn't at least leave me with one good memory to hold onto - you. But he left me with nothing but bills and a broken heart. So I turned to my faith and my schooling, praying for a new father for you. Ten years went by. Ten of my most fertile, child-bearing years. I stayed true to my faith, believing that my obedience would be honored in the end with a sweet child(ren) to cherish, protect, direct, and guide.
Towards the end of that decade of my life, I began to realize that what I had believed in all my life was a lie. I began to realize that I had sacrificed you on the altar of a lie. I could have had you all on my own. Our life may not have been perfect or always easy, but we would have had each other. I never wanted a career. I only wanted a family. In the end I got neither.
Oh I have a family. I have a great husband who I love very much and we enjoy travelling together. He has two boys that I was able to help finish raising, but they don't call me mom like you would have. This family is a family I chose, not one I helped create.
I miss the possibilities that your lives would have encompassed. Seeing you with your cousins at family gatherings. Helping you navigate school, friends, relationships, jobs, and children of your own. I miss celebrating birthdays, graduations, weddings, and baby showers with you. I miss you.
My life definitely feels incomplete without you. I am trying to take inspiration from the thousands of other women who also miss their dream children and are choosing instead to live a life of joy and love to honor those dream children. My heart still feels too heavy to find joy right now. Maybe soon I will find it. Maybe soon seems to have been the mantra of my life and it has left me empty inside.
So to my children who will never be I say I am so sorry I kept waiting for you instead of doing more to get you here. I am sorry I was gullible and naively believed that some great spirit was out there looking out for my best interest. I'm sorry I failed you. But know this, I never ever stopped dreaming of you. I never ever stopped wanting you. And I never ever stopped loving you.
Goodbye my darling dreams.
Love
Mom
Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash
Jennifer