The Daughter She Never Had

All this week we pay tribute to Ma with excerpts from the latest books on motherhood as we count down to Mother’s Day on Sunday.

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In “Letters to Our Daughters” (Beyond Words Publishing), editors Kristine Van Raden and Molly Davis have assembled a collection of letters of diverse voices and perspectives that underscore how important it would be to write a letter “to our daughters, expressing our love and sharing our dreams and hopes for her, a keepsake that she could treasure and reflect upon in years to come.”

A mother of three boys writes to the daughter she miscarried:

Dear Tawnie, the daughter I never had,

You have three brothers now, all nearly grown. So much time has passed that I seldom think of you anymore. I guess Solzhenitsyn was right: We mortals are incapable of sustaining faithfulness or grief. Life goes on.

Yet, I loved you for the three months I carried you. I dreamed of the blue-eyed, blond, chubby-cheeked girl you’d be. I planned to sew yards of pink ruffles and lace into your wardrobe. You had a family to welcome you. . . .

I am sometimes jealous of my friends who are mothers of daughters. . . . They seem to maintain a closeness and can share the misfortunes, whimsies and giddiness of life. There are women in my family with whom I can share anything, and I guess I always wanted to extend that to another generation, like a family heirloom.

I don’t mean to carry on and make us sad. As I write I anticipate someday having daughters-in-law. It won’t be the same as the one I raised, but perhaps, Tawnie, in missing you, I will try harder to welcome them into the family.

With Love,

Mother