Family

Dear Babies, I don't know how to start this letter to you. I don't want to be ashamed of you, because I know I would have loved you if you were here. I am ashamed though, and being ashamed makes me feel even worse. I have to tell you how I feel, and hope that these words can reach someone else before she makes the worst decision of her life. I don't know you, little ones. I never will. I don't know you because I ended our relationship before it began. I killed you, and I can't live with the guilt anymore. I was stupid, young, and selfish. I tried to make a man happy that couldn't live with the responsibility of you. So I went alone, and told myself that it was for the best. I refused to listen to your heartbeat. I refused to see your body and your face on an ultrasound. I refused...

Dear Son, You are loved. You are worthy. If there are only two things I want you to always remember, these are it. As I type this letter you are sitting in your room playing with your little wood car. That's your favorite car. And ironically it is the only toy your father ever bought you. He bought it in your birth town in Brazil, two weeks before you were born. We left the beach and he saw it in a little local store. He picked up for you because it was handmade. During that moment I actually thought the three of us was going to be a family. Unfortunately things did not happened the way I dreamed it would, and this week, while watching Calliou calling his father, you asked where your own father was for the first time. I don't think you understood what your question meant...

Dear Mom, It has been way too long since I have taken time to sit down to write you a letter. I'm actually not sure I have ever written you a letter. And I am 100% sure you have never been the subject of my blog. Sure, we chat when we are together and we have pleasant phone calls discussing this and that, but often that is surface stuff. Nothing wrong with surface stuff, I'm engaged, you're engaged, we laugh, I cry (I am working on toughening up a bit), it's all good. We are great at surface stuff like what's going on with the kids, what trips we have planned and what crazy stuff is happening in the world (You might recall, you have to remind me what's going on in the world since I closed my life to newspapers, radio and television years ago. Thank you for the updates). People that...

Dear Drunk Driver who Hit the Vehicle my Husband Was Riding in Late Saturday Night/Early Sunday Morning; I won't pretend to know what you were thinking when you slammed into the back of that Suburban and then careened into the truck my husband was riding in at the time. I don't think I can wrap my head around the decision to get behind the wheel of a vehicle while drunk, drinking or even only "just had a few." There is no excuse: You were in the wrong. Now that we all understand that you were in the wrong, I feel the need to tell you a few things about one of the men you endangered with your bad decision. He is, hands down, the most amazing man I have ever met. He is a devoted husband, a hands-on daddy, this house's primary dish-washer, a loving son, a helpful grandson, a...