Letters to Nora - February 26th, 2012

 February 26th, 2012

Dear Sweet Nora,

I couldn't stop thinking about you today.  Well, I think about you everyday, every hour, and every minute.  It's like I love you more each day, even though you are not here.

Your dad and I are taking photography classes together again.  We did this a lot before we were pregnant with you.  We went to one tonight but I couldn't concentrate, honey.  I love photography too.  I am not great, but I have always loved how a camera feels in my hands and I love putting the pictures I take in shutterfly albums as keepsakes of the past.

I guess it was hard to focus because I kept thinking about how I was planning and anticipating taking pictures of you after you were born.  I wanted to lay you on your blanket on the floor and place blocks next to you with the number of months old you were.  I wanted to capture your smile in the camera's lens, as your face glowed with the excitement of a new soul learning about life through this unfamiliar body of yours.  I imagined your squeaks, cries, and laughs that you would have made while the flash blinded your eyes and you would have responded with a strong blink and a crinkled face.

I mourn the fact that I won't be able to make a happy baby book, with pictures of you coming home from the hospital in your proud daddy's arms.  Me holding you in the hospital bed with a smile of excitement on my face.  This is a different reality, one that might have taken place in an alternative universe adjacent to ours, where the opposite results of the events of this world go on.  The Nick, Lindsey, and Nora of that world live together happily and are innocently oblivious to this kind of loss, this kind of grief.  I envy them and wish we could trade places with them in their reality.

So, to focus on you in class, and all my overwhelming thoughts, I drew my feelings.  I drew you a picture during class.  Your dad looked over at me and my drawing at one point and I believe the look he gave me said, "Are you okay," because my picture was dark, but I think, also full of love.

So honey, today I leave you with the picture I drew.  I always hoped that you would draw me pictures to hang on the fridge one day, but I guess I drew you this picture because you can't draw one for me.


Love Always & Forever,

Mom