You’ll Never, but I Can…

"Your lights reflected now. Reflected from afar. We were but stones. Your light made us stars"

Pearl Jam, Light Years

Dear Emma,

As I drove your sisters to school today and watched them walk from the car, I could feel the deep, radiating pain come from the phantom piece of my heart where you should be. Driving home the words “you’ll never, I’ll never” rang in my ears creating a deafening sound.

You’ll never take your first steps. I’ll never hear your first words. You’ll never make your first friend. I’ll never take you to your first day of school. You’ll never feel the exhilaration of your first time riding a bike. I’ll never get to make popcorn and snuggle on the couch with you for our famous movie nights. You’ll never graduate. I’ll never walk you down the aisle. You’ll never get to grow closer with your sisters as you face the trials and triumphs this life has to offer. I’ll never get to meet your children.

It’s been two years since you were born. It’ll be a matter of days from now that we had to let you go. I want to tell you now, I do think about what you and I will never have the chance to do. However, I don’t live there. Instead I live in what I can do.

I can love your sisters more each day. I can build a stronger relationship with mom every moment. I can give more generously to my friends. I can take this small patch of world I have the privilege of tending and make it yield good for the rest of the world.

For two years now, every good deed, every kindness, ever generosity, every ounce of love given is done because I can and you’ll never.

I know everyone has lost. I know everyone will lose. I feel that if we saw it as our responsibility to love, be kind, and be generous in the place of those we’ve lost, if each time someone left this earth, we loved double or triple in their place then we’d make the world so much better.

You will never have the chance to give love to others on this earth, so I choose to double the love I can give for the rest of my life.

Love,

Dad