The letter I wrote to Elizabethe-Ane in 2011

Another year, another tear
by Desarei Analiyah-Raeven on Monday, October 24, 2011 at 8:18pm
You can listen to the vocal of this letter here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jClVXwr20Y, however, the volume quality is very low.

I never thought that I would be one of the many, who have lost a child. I never imagined that I would be among those ranks. It is definitely not a badge of honor. Hell, it's not a badge I'd be happy to see anyone wear. It hurts. The pain at times, is absolutely crushing. There are days when you feel like you can't go on. There are days when you feel like giving up and curling into a ball for years on end. There are days when you sit and reflect on the memories, good...bad...ugly...beautiful. There are days when you feel like, Okay I can handle this. I am good today. As few and far as the good days seem to be...we learn to cherish them all the more. I think I am finally finding, yet searching for a small semblance of peace with Eli's death. I will never understand why my daughter, why my baby. But I can find some small span of peace and comfort. It has taken me 17 years to get to this point. It has been a long road and one hell of a journey. I have no doubt that I will always be on this journey, as the peaceful days are few and far between. But right now, I will live in the onse that I have.

Every night, as I lay down and close my eyes, I see you before me. I reach for you and yet you slip away yet again. I can't help but feel as though I failed you, as though I should have tried harder to hold onto you. Yet...I let you slip away. Even now, as the years slip by, and I see reminders of you in my daily life...I can't help but wonder what you would look like now. Would you have my red hair? My eyes? Would you be full of fire and spirit? There isn't a day that goes by, that I don't blame myself, that I don't wish you were here with me...in my arms, where you belong. I long for the chance to stroke your hair and to hear you say "I love you Mama". What hurts the most, is being so close to you, having so much to say, and never knowing what could have been for you, for me. I still find it hard to deal with the pain of losing you Elizabethe-Ane. If I could do it all over, I'd find a way to save you, to give you the chance to be here with me. I will never know what could have been, but I can say that I know what its like to always love you, to always carry you in my heart with me, everywhere I go. I see a new mother and her newborn baby girl, and I see you...and me. This year, you would have been 17 years old. A teenager. Looking at your big sister Cheyenne, I know that you would have been just as beautiful as she is. I find some comfort in knowing that you and her would have been close. I will always love you Elizabethe-Ane....please know that I tried so hard to save you, that I gave all that I could.

Every moment has been counted and documented in my mind. Every second locked up in my heart, in that special place that only she will ever hold the key to. Anger, sorrow, tears, broken, emptiness but yet a smile creeps in at times, a smile that comes with the knowledge that she is watching over me, protecting that special place within me.

Every image I have of you in my mind, I treasure and cherish even more each time I go thru them. Thoughts that consume me at times, give me solace that I briefly, for a moment.... held an angel. I can't deny that it hurts, because it does...greatly. No mother should ever have to feel the pain that I do every year in October. Its a pain that is beyond imaginable for those who have never had to let go of their child. They try to understand, but can't quite do so. I would never and could never wish this pain on anyone, not even my worst enemy. Its crushing. At times it makes you feel like you can't breathe. Everyone told me that as time slipped on, that the pain would lessen, that I'd be able to accept the fact that you were gone. How very wrong they were. That pain....never lessened. Its still as strong today as it was that fateful day that I lost you.

Sometimes, I sit in the darkness, alone...and think about you. I think about everything that should have been. I think about what it would have been like to watch you take your first steps, hear you say Mama, watch you smile...to dry your tears when you were hurt....But I will never know because you were taken from me and given wings to fly....before I ever got the chance to see any of it.

I loved you from the moment I knew you were coming and I loved you the moment you slipped away and passed on. Not many can say they have seen an angel...but I can say.....I held onein my arms. And I cherish each moment I had with you.

Seventeen long years will have passed since you died, come October 24th. Seventeen years without my little girl, Seventeen years without being able to see you, hold you, comfort you. In those seventeen years, I have thought of you daily, wished that you were here...daily. In those seventeen years I have learned seventeen things about myself that center around losing you.
1- I learned to forgive.
2- I learned to live.
3- I learned what passion was.
4- I learned what it was like to lose something so precious.
5- I learned to give all that I have when I do things.
6- I learned to GIVE chances.
7- I learned to TAKE chances.
8. I learned to let go of certain things.
9- I learned what makes me stronger.
10- I learned to help others.
11- I learned to accept others.
12- I learned that not everything is in our control.
13- I learned that life can often times be cruel.
14-I learned that even when things are going wrong, in every way...That it doesn't mean I have to let it knock me down.
15- I learned that I am stronger than I ever realized
16- I learned that sometimes, it's okay to let others walk beside me and share my grief. My pain. my love.
and the biggest lesson I learned.....
17- I learned that when we learn to love another, so completely, without abandon, no fear, for who they are, not what or who we want them to be....That we can get thru anything in life. That it makes us a better person. I learned to not be selfish and condemming of others. I learned that no matter what others think of me, that its what I think of myself that matters the most. We have to learn to forgive ourselves before we can expect others to forgive us. We have to learn to LOVE ourselves before we can even begin to expect someone else to love us for WHO and WHAT we are. There are things in life that we have no control over and nothing we do will change that. I learned that while we may not agree with it, nor want to accept it, its just how fate works, its just how it is.

I will go thru my life with my angel in my heart. I will always remember the brief moments I held you, however brief they were...you left footprints in my heart that will never fade.

I love you Elizabethe-Ane Maree....and remember that mama has never let others forget who you are and who you were to ME.
I'll always love you babygirl

Love,
Mama