The Hardest Decision

October 31, 2012                                                                                        9:19 a.m

Dear Brynna,

Here it is.

Despite wishing and hoping and trying so very hard, I could not stop Halloween from coming.

A year ago today your Daddy and I got the results of your video EEG which told us, due to the lack of oxygen during labor, you would never walk, or talk, or eat, or breathe or learn, or even “know” us or anything around you. 

And then Daddy and I had to make the worst decision any parent ever has to make.  We had to decide whether to keep you hooked up to a ventilator forever in attempt to keep you with us or whether to unhook you from all the machines and let you soar free, untethered to this world by lines and tubes…

Oh Brynn, I hope you know how hard that decision was for us.  How desperately we searched for alternatives.  How hard we prayed and attempted to bargain with God, telling him to take us and save you.  And somehow, the decision, although already made and done, is still hard and some days feels harder than when we first made it.  It is such a permanent decision…

But we made it out of love for you.  Deep and true love.  We let you go so that you would not be stuck in a body that would not allow you to live, and instead, despite our minds telling us “no, don’t do it, your arms will ache and your hearts will break into tinier pieces than they already have”, we followed our hearts.  We followed our “Mommy” and “Daddy” hearts and recognized we wanted better for you.  We, as parents, want the best for all of our children.  Anything less than that is unacceptable.

We love you so very much that we made the hardest, most devastating decision…we chose to let you go.  We chose to let you be free of the limitations of your brain and body and instead fly freely on the wind among the birds and butterflies above the rainbows.

As you know, Brynna girl, there is not a day, not a moment, that goes by that I don’t wish things were different and that you were here with us.  I long to hold you and kiss you and watch you grow. 

Today, as I was thinking about what to write to you, I realized I will never get the chance to just sit and talk with you.  And that broke my heart all over again.

In the first months, and now year since you’ve gone, I’ve been consumed with all the baby milestones you would be reaching had things been different.  Not getting to see you roll over for the first time, not being able to watch you scrunch up your darling baby face as you tried new foods, not being able to help you take your first steps…

But today, a new realization washed over me.

I realized I will never be able to sit across from you on a couch or lay with you on a bed, and just talk.  Not about who your friends are, or what you’re learning in school, or what boy you’re interested in or even what Daddy and I are doing that is “embarrassing you”.  I am so sorry we won’t be able to just talk.  My heart breaks for all the conversations we will never have face to face.

But then my heart speaks up and tells my brain to think outside itself.  Get outside of my nine dots. 

True, we won’t talk in the same way I talk to your brothers, but you are there, talking to me.  Talking to Daddy.  Talking to Cole and Aidan and Jack.  And we hear you.  I promise.  Your messages are not sent in vain.  We are not so consumed by our sadness at the loss of losing you that we miss what you’re telling us.  We feel you telling us, and we know in our hearts, that you are safe and happy.  We know you are seeing and feeling things that we can only imagine.

And that knowledge helps to heal my “broken momma heart.”  Although it brought us to our knees in sorrow to let you go, I know by doing so we granted you the ability to truly be free and, at the same time, it gave you the ability to be with us in a greater capacity than if we’d kept you here.

I love you, Brynna.

Love,

Momma