About Amanda

A newborn life is precious, but I never knew how very precious until the night of your death. I had heard it said that the bigger you are, the more powerful you are. How untrue. For the virus that infected your body was so small, yet so powerful, it invaded your body without anyone knowing it was there.
As you lie there in your hospital crib, crying out to me to hold you, I picked you up. I comforted you, rocked you gently and after you fell asleep in my arms, laid you back down. I should have continued to hold you, caress your skin and kiss your face. Perhaps these things would have offered you comfort, as the pain inside you grew stronger. Instead, I gave way to selfishness. The selfishness of needing sleep and the belief that you were going to be all right.
Instead I awoke an hour later to the nurse holding your limp body in her arms and begging me to find help. I ran down the hallways of the hospital, screaming for help. Help to save you. Although the nurses and doctor went to your side, the only help you received was being lifted from pain by deaths arms. I tried to fight my way back to your side, believing that if you felt my touch and heard my voice you would fight your way from death and back to life. Back to me.
I was denied the right to hold you, to touch you to comfort you. I was ordered to stand in the hallway just outside your room watching the doctor trying to revive your body. The words "I'm sorry, we have done all that we can" fell from the doctors lips. Those words offered no comfort and could not invade the blackness that began to form around my heart.
As I stood over your lifeless body, knowing that I had to say goodbye, the mask of denial revealed itself and began to hide me away from life. Life that I had once known.
The days following your death were a blur of activity that revolved around me, but did not include me. Dreamlike? Perhaps more like a nightmare. A nightmare that I cannot, nor will ever awaken from. I wanted the world to end, stopping the pain that had seized my heart, seized a part of my life as it had seized your life. I hid behind this mask of delusion. Denial. Mistrust. Emptiness. To feel nothing, see nothing, admit nothing was less painful than facing the truth. The truth that I had lost my angel to death...


They gave us only two hours to say everything we'd never get the chance to say again. We told her we loved her and we cried endless tears. Mark refused to let them take her to the morgue, he picked her little body up and gently carried her down and kissed her little forehead and said" Until we meet again."

My dearest Amanda:
It was one year ago today, that I held you in my arms. Laying you down to sleep and kissing your face, I didn't know it would be the last time. How brave you were to cross over to the other side, not afraid to leave, not afraid to die. I am sorry I failed you. I should have known you were trying to tell me goodbye. I should have continued to hold you and kept you close to my heart. Now, only the memory of you is close to my heart. I'm supposed to go on, continue to live, continue to live with thoughts of you, but it doesn't ease the pain of losing you. The sunshine on its brightest day is dull in comparison to the warmth of your smile. Nothing I touch is as tender and soft as was your skin. I long to smell your scent, to caress your little body, and to hold you near to me. I have cried tears for you, enough to fill a river; still the pain continues to flow. I wait for the day when I can once again hold you in my arms, see your smile and touch your skin. I hope on that day, you will tell me you forgive me for letting you go and that you forgave me the moment you left me. Until then, every tear I shed will hold an apology to you and no pain I endure will ever be greater than losing you. Until I see you again, my little angel, please keep me near your heart, as I will forever keep you near mine.

Love, Mommy