From Marmee Nees

My dear sweet Lydia, while it is still July, 2010

How I loved holding you; How your Pop did too. We so wanted to do that longer, to see your eyes open again, to hear your cry. But we are eternally grateful to your God, our God who let us hold you while your skin was still warm and your sweet cheeks rosey. It is enough for now, “dayenu”.

You so looked like your Mom when she was newborn. You had your aunt Brandi’s hair, and your grandma Loshi’s round nose, and you had a dimple on your chin that none of us recognized -it must have been a special gift from God’s own perfect design. Oh, how my heart aches to know you more. This is what beauty has always done- made my heart ache. But this time there is a real person attached to the abstract ache and it hurts hard. This is the thing I cannot shake, and do not want to shake: the weightiness of it all. Your weight in my arms was so solid, so sure. The weight of a soul is like this: tangible with gravity, reality with a distant assurance, with a severe longing I cannot put to words.

And you were brave, just like your Mom, and you stayed awake fighting to be alert just like your Dad, even at the sound of your Dad as he talked to you. There was a communion there between you and your Mom and Dad that some people don’t get to know even after decades of life lived side by side. I am so thankful I got to sing to you some precious songs: over and over in those sweet early morning hours. You will know my voice too then when we can sing them together in that great day coming. And we will know things - “things into which the angels long to look”.

Your sweet Mom, our Betsy…oh how her arms ache for you. Since she was a little girl herself she loved to pick up her dolly “and enjoy her”. I think she has been longing for you for a very, very long time, since before you were even created you were on her mind. I never saw a young girl enjoy her pregnancy more, even through all the particular pain. Betsy radiated for you and became a Mom with you. How valiant she was!

You can know sweet Lydia, that your Dad will take very good care of your Mom now in all this sadness of missing you and waiting for you. We have seen it with our own eyes how he is loving on your Mom, attentive to your Mom. So, if you are at all like your Mom in this way, with a heart of mercy, know that she is already being comforted, even as Jesus already told us when He was here on this hard earth: “blessed are those who weep now, for (one day) you (together) will laugh” Luke 6:21b

I am waiting for that day too, with much, much love, from your Marmee,

Ps. Today I am going to have a charm made for my grandmother bracelet, and this way all your cousins, when they look at each charm will remember you and the confidence we have of seeing you again, made whole.