Letter To My Grandaughter

It only seems like yesterday that we brought you home from the hospital. A bundle of pink and white so tiny and helpless. Now here you are a young teenager growing toward adulthood. Where have the years gone? They seem to have flown by all too quickly. Years have passed and years remain yet to be experienced.

There was nothing easy about your birth. We knew from the onset that danger lay at every turn. But determination far outweighed any and all risks. From the moment I saw your tadpolelike body and the now beating heart on the Ultrasound, I knew I would move Heaven and Earth to keep you safe. Days flowed into weeks, weeks into months and finally the day arrived for you to make your grand entrance into this world. Here you were. All of two pounds and three ounces of life. I made the hospital attendants stop as they were wisking you away to the NICU so your daddy and I could at least take a glimpse of you. I remember the breath that caught in my throat as I looked on this small bundle of wrinkled flesh that carried my DNA. What an awesome feeling to know that my blood ran in your veins. Here was my grandaughter.

In the months that followed, NICU was not only your home but ours as well. Night after night we sat by your incubator watching and praying for your safety. Needles and tubes ran everywhere. I laugh at this now. But I couldn't help but compare you to a newly hatched chicken. Your skin seemed too large for your bone structure and hung in tiny wrinkles. You had the soft down of a duck and the tinest hands and feet I ever saw. But the greatest danger came from the fact that, due to early delivery because of your mother's health, your lungs were underdeveloped and therein lay the fight. But fight you did and soon you were breathing on your own. The day we were able to actually hold you in our arms was one of tremendous joy. No longer did we have to simply touch you through the small openings of your incubator. I remember holding you in my arms and tightly to my chest. It was at times like this I found myself secretely vowing within myself that no one and nothing would ever hurt you. I would always be there to guard and protect you. However.............

Little did I know that in time you would not only be taken from my arms but my life as well. The day you were gone from me I felt as though a part of me had been amputated. The pain I felt was unbearable. It was sad that it happened. And even though there had been short spurts of contact with you, I wasn't there to fulfill the vow I had made. I cried and prayed. Prayed and cried. There was a hole in my heart that only you, my precious first grandaughter, could fill. For over ten years I kept your car seat in my car right where it had been from the day I drove you home from the hospital. Time and again people would urge me to remove the seat. But I adamantly refused. That seat would remain where it was until you returned to me. It was my only point of contact with you.

Well my precious one, time has passed and here you are. God has graciously answered prayers prayed so long ago. How can I tell you how much I love you. How can I convey the overwhelming sense of awe I still feel about you. Oh yes, there are many years to catch up on. Lots of things to do, places to go to and people to see. Things we can experience together. I can hardly wait to impart to you the wisdom of my years and life. Things I hope will help mold you into the woman I know you can and will be.

In a few short weeks I will be turning 60. I can't help but know that with this birthday I'm facing my own mortality. But I know that as long as you live my memory will live as well. You are the one who will carry me into the next generation of this family. The bible says that sorrow will last the night but joy comes in the morning.

You are my morning, Tiana!