Dearest Robynne,

I wish we could go back to the weekend before Zoe was born, when we ate delicious food and watched a chick flick together and excitedly discussed your impending labor. When we shopped for the last few baby items and I cackled at the sight of you trying to get your fully pregnant body into an inner tube. When we floated in the pool in the late July sunshine and soaked up the Summer. It was calm then, the calm before the biggest storm that would completely annihilate every dream you were holding in your hands. It was a bittersweet time, that weekend. I think of you and your perfectly round belly, your colorful bikini top and a dandelion tucked behind your ear. I smile at the memory and I curse it all in one breath. It's unfathomable how life can change so quickly and how fast it can turn its back on you.

When we say that losing a child is the worst possible experience one could ever face in life, it's not a cliche. It is the stuff of nightmares. It is the reason I woke up, sobbing and sweating in the middle of the night when Aidan was young and I'd had a dream that he was hit by a semi-truck. It is the reason I panicked after five full minutes of losing Rylan in a department store. It is the dark, obsessive wanderings of my mind when my children are away from me and the unimaginable horrors I have heard on the nightly news bubble to the forefront of my mind. It is the fear that was hiding in the center of my chest as Tristan was surrounded by a flurry of white coats in an Emergency Room, sick with pneumonia. It is the insanity that made me put my hand to Jack's face every few minutes when he was a newborn, to check for his exhalations. It is the reason why the industry has produced a childproof lock for everything. Mini blind strings. The sharp corners of a coffee table. Electrical outlets. The knife drawer. The oven. Every mother carries the fear within her, tries to stifle it, tries to not let it overwhelm her and invade every waking moment.

So when people say, "I cannot even begin to imagine what you're going through," this, to me, is the cliche. We have all imagined it, whether we've morbidly entertained the thought or have only let it slide past the backs of our eyelids before we've quickly brushed it away. Every mother who hears your story is crying with you. Every mother who has carefully tucked away the seed of crippling fear deep in her chest, has the knowledge that the possibility of losing her child is a result of the overwhelming and expansive love they feel, and never quite experienced until they were transformed into mothers. The woman who has just discovered two lines on a home pregnancy test feels it, and the great grandmother who is taking her last breath of life is still feeling it. We are all hoping and praying and begging that our children will outlive us.

And so, every day that you wake up to a life without your daughter, and you make yourself a cup of tea, I am astonished. Every day that you prepare your breakfast or brush your teeth or take a shower or make a phone call, or just simply put one foot in front of the other, I stand in utter amazement. As the days have slid into weeks and now into months, and you have found your laughter again, I am humbled by your strength. Every step you take, even backwards and then forward again, are proof that you are the most astounding woman I have ever known. I know that you feel crazy, and even in those crazy times, I want you to see what I see. That hidden under the layers and layers of sorrow and an outstanding amount of grief, is a spirit that cannot be broken, even when it feels that way to you. Even when you feel that you've lost your mind, everyone around you can only see a mother who is making her way through life with grace and reverence and beauty. Your strength persists. It is there and it is thriving, even in the moments when you feel the weakest. And in those moments, I will be there. In all of my sarcastic glory and my inappropriate humor and my stubborn unwillingness to shed too many tears; I will be there. And each and every time you need a help up, my hand will be extended to you. Not out of pity, but as a token of my gratitude for allowing me to walk beside you during the darkest days of your life. And for the lessons and the gifts that your life and Zoe's have given me.

I love you, lady. Just keep swimming.

Rae