A Letter from Mommy to her Little Boy, Now an Angel in Heaven

My sweet baby boy,

I knew the name I would give you as soon as I heard the doctor tell me you would be a boy. I didn’t have to go to a book to find a name. I felt it in my heart and I spoke it softly on my lips. It was perfect.

From that first moment when I learned I was going to be your mommy, I loved you. It was a love so deep I almost couldn’t breathe. Yes, you took my breath away even if I couldn’t see you.

I counted the days until you would be born. I felt you grow, not so much at first, but more as each day passed. And as the days became weeks and the weeks became months, my patience became less with each day because I wanted you in my arms now.

I knew your heart was beating. And I knew you could hear my heart beating and I hoped you felt that each beat of my heart was the sound of my love for you. And as my body fed you so you could grow, so my heart fed you with my love so that you would know there would be someone who loved you waiting for you on the other side of the womb.

I imagined how you would feel in my arms, you so warm and so soft and so fragile. I wanted to see the color of your eyes, the color of your hair, to smell your sweet baby breath. I couldn’t wait to hear your first cry, to wipe your tears with my fingers, and to hold your head in my hands.

I imagined the smile on your face as I bent down to kiss you for the first time. And I wondered what your giggles would sound like as you looked at me and reached out to me with your tiny fingers.

All of that and so much more I had planned for you on our first day together, for our first week together, for our first month together, for our first year together. for our many years together.

But, as you know, my precious baby boy, we were not given that gift of time together. So now that day when we can be together has to wait a while longer. We never imagined we would be separated so soon, and yet we were, cruelly, coldly, inconceivably.

But I promise the day will come when all of our dreams finally will come true–when we will be together as we planned from the beginning, before pain broke into our lives, before death ripped you from my arms, before I became the mommy with an empty crib and with a broken heart.

And then, on that day when the sun shines brightly again, we will laugh and we will play and we will jump high in the sky with joy. And some day you also will be able to see your brother and your sister stand in front of you. They miss you so much and they ask me so many painful questions for which I have no good answers. “Where is my baby brother?” “Why didn’t you bring him home with you?” “When can we see him?”

With tears in my eyes, I try to tell them that you are in heaven and that heaven is a good place, even if it is far from us. I tell them that heaven is a place where people who love one another go to be with God and to be with everybody they love. And I tell them that you are there waiting for us to come to you. They look sad as they listen to these answers.

I promise you, sweet child of mine, that I will remember you every day that we are apart. And I promise that I will always keep you as a living part of this family. This always will be your home–with us.

I will think of you as my quiet child who doesn’t speak so much, but who sends dewdrops of love upon me each morning, whose memory brings a skip to my heart, and whose eyes see me even if I cannot see you.

I will think of you on your first day of school, although you are not there to carry your new backpack. I will think of you on your birthday each year, although you cannot blow out your candles on the cake. I will think of you in the silence of the night when I cry because I want to hold you in my arms.

And I want you to know that God also has made a promise to me. She has promised me that she will hold you safely in her arms until I can be with you. She has sworn an oath–mom to mom–that you will never leave her eyesight and that she will watch over you as you play with all the other little angels in heaven.

She has told me that she will let you sit on her lap when you cry because you miss us and I know she will speak softly to you the words of love that I would say to you if I were there. I know this because God is a loving mother to all her children.

And because God knows what little boys like, she says you can have a doggy in heaven to keep you company and to race with you around the celestial house, and to bark a warning when you roam a bit too far in the yard, as little boys like to do.

So, if I cry for you today, it is not because our dreams have died with you. No, they only have been delayed for a while–how long I do not know–but they will become real in a time that God alone knows in her infinite wisdom. We must trust in her until that time comes.

I want you to tell God “thank you” for giving you to me, for you were and always will be the greatest gift any mother could want and I always will be the proudest mom in the world because you are my son.

Sleep now, my sweet angel, sleep. Tomorrow brings a new day for us, and each new day brings us closer together, and being together will bring us the joy we’ve been waiting a lifetime for. Never forget I will love you and I will miss you every day of my life. You will be the one I think of in the morning when I wake from sleep and you will be the angel I think of at night when my head rests on the pillow, wishing I could hear your footsteps down the hall.

I am, now and always, your mommy.

— Jeremy Myers