Dearest Nora,
It has been about a year since I knew of your existence. Oh, how I waited so very impatiently for your arrival. I should tell you how I found out about you. It is such a sweet story and one of my favorite memories (next to holding you, of course).
...Your mom told me about you when she was in Hawaii. Your Uncle Zach and I were staying at your mom and dad's house while they were gone. I was done with work late and got there about 8:30pm. (It was sometime in May, but I don't remember the exact date.) I was tired and just wanted to spend time with your uncle and the dogs. Your mom, however, kept bugging me on the phone. She said she really needed me to find a letter for her when I got to her house.
Yeah, yeah. I thought, This is obviously "Lindsey Importance." Which meant I would do it on my own time and not on hers. I forgot to call her when I got to their house, so of course she called me. Exasperated, I relented in her pushiness and looked for the darn letter.
She told me she left the letter in the top left drawer of her vanity. Irritated and annoyed, I mulled around in her drawer as I talked with her. There was not any letter that I could find, and my edginess was growing.
All of the sudden, I noticed this peculiar envelope. It was more like a card envelope, not a business envelope like I was looking for. Peaking out of the top was something that looked like an ultrasound. In my mind, I thought, Lindsey's not pregnant...Is she? I wavered about what to do. I didn't want to pry and be nosey...but at the same time I did. (You can guess which route I chose!)
Still--sort of--talking with your mom, and consistently telling her I couldn't find the letter, I curiously picked up the envelope. Slowly, I pulled out the picture of you! The title and date told me that it was in fact your mom's and that the little peanut in the picture was in fact you!
I started screaming, "ARE YOU PREGNANT?!?!?" And your mom just laughed. I continued to scream and jump up and down until your uncle came running into the room with pure panic on his face.
"What's wrong?!?" he asked.
"LINDSEY'S PREGNANT!!!!" I yelled back. (He thought I had seen a spider--my responses of pure excitement and pure terror are apparently the same to him!)
That moment made me so happy. Just thinking about it gives me that rush of excitement...but then it drops to excruciating sadness realizing I will never get to tell you that story. You'll never know the pure joy I felt knowing that I was going to be your aunt; that you were going to be a new member of our family. Right away I knew you were a girl (okay, so maybe there was also some wishful thinking), but I just knew that you were going to be a very special little girl.
And you are...just not in the way we had all hoped.
Someday I will tell this story to your siblings and cousins. I will let them know how special you are and what you mean to our family. I will tell them of your love and how for the brief time you were in our lives you taught us all how to love more deeply. How you taught me to love more deeply and to cherish all the moments in this life.
I'm going to leave you with lyrics from a song that remind me of you...
It may well be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you,
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart.
You have left your little handprint on my heart, dearest niece. And I will cherish it forever.
Love always,
Your Awesome Aunt Kristi
A very humorous and heartwarming story about learning Lindsey and Nick were expecting. Very well done Awesome Aunt Kristi. Love you.
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