My little sweet Lily Rose Marie

I actually wanted to write during the whole time we were together. Write feelings and little stories for you - for later. You should know how much I enjoyed every day, how nice it was to feel you in my body and to be bilingual with you. You were there for me! Yeah, I sensed you were going to be a girl - kind of. And you? What did you feel? You will surely have felt that you were longed for and expected from me with great love. I loved you with all the strength of my heart. You were the greatest love event between your body, your father and mine.That was so until someone or something decided that you, my child, should leave my womb after almost 4 months. I hope you did not suffer much. You know I'm afraid of dying! And you little person had to walk this difficult path, without assistance, all by yourself. - Or did you feel my inner restlessness after all, my need to be close to you? I really wish it would have helped you. But there is no answer to that.  And now, dear little Lily Rose Marie, stay in God's arms, it is sure to be nice and warm there. I loved you more than anything in the world.  Lily are you ok in heaven? What do you do there? Can you see my family? Do you think of me?

Although I have always kept you in my heart every year gone by and will continue to honour and love you, there are some issues I need to share with you. I am so sorry that I did not listen to my heart and soul more to put you as Nr. 1 all the time. In the 9th week of bonding with you, I stressed myself out visiting your father in the hospital far away, worrying constantly about my job and your father. I was still working and taking care of Belle. You would have loved her so much. She is now in heaven, so please find her and look after her. One day, Belle even had diaherra and my hormones were running wild. I am so sorry for putting you through such an unpleasant rollecoaster of emotions. I should have insisted on rest. Your father unfortunately seemed not to take notice of this. Sorry that your grandmother said it was good that you were never born to your great grandmother who would have loved you with all her heart. She is now in heaven, so please find her and get the love from her that she so gave to me all the years. Sorry that your father seemed to be so passive that I began to wonder if he was even happy you were there. I am sure he was, it just did not seem to be so at times. Thank you for beating your little heart for me and living inside me. You have given me my purpose in life. You are my greatest love.

Please forgive me that I did not insist on having a funeral after the operation that I was so influenced by others and could not think straight. I would do anything to turn back the clock to see and touch you. Even if the hospital did not value our bond and the need to grieve and love one another with honour, I should have insisted more. Sorry that I never planned a funeral up until this year 2021 because I fear that once I ask you for my forgiveness and have the ceremony that you will forget me and I may not cry for you as before.

I am sure that you felt all of my emotions back then. After you went to heaven, I was in shock, everything happened so quickly - the diagnosis, the admission to the hospital - an automatism was set in motion.  As if in a dream, I drove home to your father. Only when I saw him did the tears come. Everything happened too quickly in the hospital - talking to anesthetists, filling out briefing documents, etc. The feeling of "no time" put me under great pressure and scared me. There was no opportunity for your father and I to comprehend and talk about our feelings, cry, comfort one another, be together .no time for the pain and sadness we were feeling.

Only in retrospect do I fully understand how important it should have been for everyone to take my feelings into account and not to let myself be pressured into a given sequence that was a normal routine for the doctor and everyone else involved. I am so sorry that it took me years of hidden depression to realise that I was being forced to act whole again and my feelings were expected to be passed over. I definitely have avoid to this day - Constantly having the feeling of being overwhelmed and of missing you. I sadly was repeatedly led to live a life where I even could not freely say exactly or express how much I was missing you. All these years gone by, I couldn't and/or was not offered the time to find peace and so the wounds are still deep.

I do however know that I found the greatest love of all when I saw you on the ultraschalmonitor and heard your heartbeat. As your mom I felt you in me and so happily recognized you as my so very special independent creature and essence.

I felt my pregnancy with you to be something that began in the womb and then slowly and inevitably spread and stretch into my body, mind and heart. Our bond grew thicker every week.

So our bond existed. Since I could not take leave, truly acknowledge my grieve etc, 17 years later I still have not found peace and I am still suffering from the burden of unprocessed things. The bond that had begun with you was expected to be abruptly broken off due to the need to return to just functioning in life andso a great deal of unrest has sadly remained.

If only I had the chance to see and touch you. It would be comforting for me if I could have held you in my arms. Somehow I believe that it may have had an influence on your karma, that you would not be all alone. Oh how I would do anything to envelop you with my love and bless you with my tears.

I decided to name you Lily because this signifies purity and innocence.-"pure", "passion" and "rebirth".  You middle name is Rose because you are the most beautiful flower of all to me and Marie in honour of your great grandmother /Baba.

Lily Rose Marie, I will try to follow my heart and do the things that flow out of love for you. This is one of the ways I can perhaps make myself truly honour my feelings that you mean the world and heaven to me. Some people may react and hurt me on my life journey, but I am sure that I will also be blessed with others who understand, accept and pass on my message of love. Why? Loving, understanding, wonderful people care about me because I care about you.

Lily - you passed away within me. Your soul left to go to heaven from the comfort of my womb. Although I would have loved so much to grow old with you, you did not have to come into this world to be close to me. Thank you so dearly Lily for sharing your living moments within me. No doctors, no labs, no terrible political policies can ever take away my most precious weeks with you. I thank you Lily for making me see in my dreams that I do not need to suffer any longer that doctor's / hospitals and horrible political laws did not allow me to bury you properly. All these people are so cruel. I forgive but will never accept what they did nor how they denied me my human right to honour you, bury you and grieve over you back then. By being the mother I am with motherly feelings, I hold onto the gift that you spent all your living days with me. Your soul had then gone to God before the horrible operation had to be done. I do not know how a hospital can even agree to follow a law that is so inhuman. Please forgive me that they did not allow me to have a ceremony for you. I have no words to describe how I could possibly grieve without you there to honour and bury. That is one of the reasons I never had a ceremony. But I never stopped thinking of you and loving you. Now after having a breakdown, loving you no less, I finally want to honour you in my own way. So I am having this ritual on the 3rd of July 2021in honour of you. But do not fret, every day I will continue to put one hand on my heart and the other on my belly in memory of you. That is my special place to go to think about you. You have given the form of my belly a purpose. Unfortunately, my Uterus had to be removed. Like all things -- once removed, there is indeed a total emptiness, but the memories remain. My body including my belly was and will always remain your home –

I love you so much my beautiful beautiful child. Please help me live with your memory and give me strength to find happiness for the time I have remaining on earth. Please help guide me to make good decisions you would be proud of me for. Please help me smile and stop suffering from others hurting me. Please help me to be your proud mom.

I can never let you go and therefore, I pray to you to be with me in spirit my entire life as mother and child.

Thousand hugs, tears, smiles and kisses

Mommy

Cathy Spiess