Dear Kinsley, 

It has been a day and a half since we lost you and it’s hard to put into words how I feel. My heart aches for you. I miss you every second of every minute. My arms are empty; I should be rocking you right now, singing and dancing just the way you like. I should be looking down into your big brown eyes, telling you how much I love you and just how beautiful you are. This feeling, this awful empty feeling is indescribable. You have left such a hole in my heart, a great big gaping hole that seems impossible to fill. It will be impossible. You were a part of me and now that part is gone. But let me tell you something very important; I understand that you had to go, I know it was your time and while I will always mourn losing you, I will never, not for one second, regret one minute I had with you. 

I hope you know how proud you made me. You were such a force. I couldn’t help but brag about all of your accomplishments. Right from the very beginning, you showed us what a warrior princess you were. “They” told us you might not survive in utero or that, if you did, you would probably be born early. At 40 weeks, we had to coax you out! They said most heart babies are small, but you didn’t get the memo - you came into this world a whopping 8 pounds of attitude. You were supposed to wait a full week to grow stronger before your first heart surgery, but in less than 24 hours you were in the OR for an emergency repair and came out of it with flying colors. When you couldn’t breathe and we chose to go forward with a tracheostomy, the doctors thought you’d be spending many months on the ventilator. A month later you were spending the entire day off the ventilator and yelling at everyone through your speaking valve. If you weren’t supposed to be able to do something, you did it. It should be no surprise to any of us that, one day short of going “home”, only days after your labs and imaging all showed you were healthy as can be, that you turned and looked at mommy and daddy, closed your eyes, and stopped breathing. You came into this world on your own terms, terms that defied medicine, and you left this world the exact same way. 

I want to thank you for so many things. Thank you for making me a mommy, it was the greatest feeling in this world. Being your mama was truly a blessing. Thank you for showing me what true courage looked like. The way you overcame every challenge you faced was inspiring. Thank you for teaching me patience, learning to take one day at a time was difficult, but it was important. Thank you for helping me find my voice, advocating for you was one of the most exhausting, frightening, and empowering things I have ever had to do. Partnering science and research and medicine with that “gut feeling” or “mama spidey sense” was so hard, but I am glad to have tested those limits. Thank you for teaching me to listen to your cues and to give you what you needed, when you needed it. I am so grateful for all the moments you responded to my touch, my voice, my snuggles with the peace and serenity that only one very comfortable, very safe baby can show. Those moments with you were pure joy. More than anything, thank you for showing me the kind of love that I could never have imagined and will never be able to describe. My heart overflows with my love for you. 

I remember on more than one occasion seeing you wake up in your crib and stare off into a corner of the room, smiling. I wondered out loud what you might be smiling about and your Grandma Kim replied quite simply that your Great Grandma Bev and Great Grandpa Walt were probably visiting you (your Grandma Kim is really “in touch” with some of these spiritual things, your mama isn’t quite there). Now looking back, I think she was right. I think Grandma and Grandpa were getting to know you, preparing you for the journey that was ahead. I find some peace in knowing that you have so many wonderful people waiting to get to know you in Heaven. I hope you’ve met your new best friend, Charlie beagle, and that he has given you lots of puppy snuggles. I hope your Grandpa Joey is telling you stories about your daddy and reminding you that you look just like him (which, consequently, means you also look like Grandpa Joey). I hope Grandma Bev and Grandpa Walt are teaching you to Garden. I hope you’ve learned to love the wind and the sunshine, though I know you weren’t a big fan of either while you were here. I hope Uncle Chuck has had a chance to rock you and Auntie Avis has smothered you with her beautiful blankets. More than anything, I hope God has given you the most beautiful set of wings, special wings for the most beautiful angel baby. I hope you are flying, free from all the pain you experienced while you were here, but still filled with all of the love that we had for you. Please watch over us and know that we will hold you in our hearts until we meet again someday. 

There are a few promises that I want to make to you. First, I promise to remember you for YOU, not for all you went through. I will remember your smiles, your voice, your attitude. I will remember how you made me feel. I will remember all of the joy and laughter and love you brought into my life and I will let the pain and heartache and frustration fade away. I promise that I will not let my heart fill with anger. This will be a tough one, your daddy and I have already talked about it as the anger tries to creep in. We have a million reasons to be mad, but we’ve decided not to be. We are going to feel this pain, this loss, we are going to let it wash over us, but we will not drown in it. Your memory does not deserve to be associated with that sort of negativity. When we think of you, they will be happy thoughts.  I promise to keep on. Right now it feels impossible. I have no idea how I will live each day without you. But I will do it. I will think about you and love you each day for my entire life. And I will keep on. I promise to talk about you, to keep your memory alive. It’s painful right now because suddenly we are talking about you in the past tense. It doesn’t seem real. But in just four short months you have given us so many experiences, so much to remember and to talk about. We will share your videos and pictures and we will brag about having the best baby ever. We will all keep saying “Kinsley Elliana, World’s Greatest Baby” just like we always did with you. And we will laugh and smile and cry and we will remember how wonderful you were. You will live on through all of us forever. 

Kinsley Elliana, my sweet angel baby, my punkin dunkin doodle, my boss babe, my princess peach, my queen bee; thank you for being my baby and letting me be your mommy. I miss you so and I love you more than you’ll ever know.