Your Nursery

Dear Morris,

Shock, sadness and despair, anger, emptiness and longing, fear, numbness, joy and happiness...it doesn't seem possible that a person could go through such a range of emotions on a daily basis without going completely crazy.  At the end of most days I feel physically exhausted and emotionally drained, but unfortunately sleep doesn't come easy.

The night before we went to the hospital to deliver you, I asked your daddy to move all of your things to the nursery.  I didn't want to come home to the reminder of the highchair you'd never sit in, the swing you'd never fall asleep in, or the stroller we'd never push you in.  I asked him to close the door to your room, hoping that if the reminders weren't there then maybe the pain wouldn't be either.

Since then I've realized that your memory is not limited to your nursery or to your things...your memory is everywhere and in everything.  And while there is pain in these memories, there is also love, joy, and happiness.  Your nursery, the last place I thought I would want to be after your death, is actually one of my favorite rooms in our house and the room where I now find the most comfort and peace.

Your daddy put so much effort into making your nursery a special place for you.  He painted the walls gray. And not just any shade of gray, but a beautiful soft gray that matches the small canvas baskets with elephants on them that hold your toys and books.  We went to Lowes three times for paint samples before we found the perfect shade.   He spent hours assembling your crib, that while beautiful, came with terrible instructions. Your daddy was down in the basement several nights tediously painting an old changing table gray and white to match the chevron print rug we bought. He refinished an outdated dresser from our spare bedroom in the perfect shade of dark gray to match your crib. He helped pick out the fabric for the curtains we had specially made for your room and for the glider we had recovered.  He even got out tape measures and levels to make sure that pictures were hung in the exact right spots on the walls (the only pictures hung with that much care in our entire house).  There is so much of your daddy's love for you in this room, and that's one of the reasons I love to be in here.

The moments that I feel the angriest and the saddest are the moments when I think about the fact that you'll never experience your daddy's love from here on earth.  He loved you from the moment he knew about you, probably even before that, and he is the perfect daddy.  I grieve for both of you over the words you'll never get to say to each other and the things you'll never get to do together.

While I grieve the relationship you'll never get to have with your earthly father, I know that you are with the Heavenly Father who loves you and us more than we could ever imagine.  As beautiful as your nursery is here on earth, I know that it doesn't come close to the room in Heaven that was prepared specifically for you by Christ.  I can't wait for you to show it to me one day.

Love,

Mommy

"In my father's house there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.  You know the way to the place where I am going."  John 14:2-4