letters...

when i was pregnant with camden i wrote him a series of letters...i started it out as letters to all of my children, but it eventually turned into intimate love notes just for him. the letters range in size and topic...some factual, some purely love and as i continue to add to them i find myself reflecting on the previous letters...the ones that i wrote before i knew camden...before we named him, before we could look into his deep blue eyes, before i knew he had his daddy's lips, before i held him for the first time...these letters were full of anticipation for future events, full of hope and expectations...i thought of these letters the day the words down syndrome first entered our vocabulary...i wondered if i would still give them to him, they didn't feel like his letters for a moment in time...i felt like they were meant for a different baby, one that didn't make it...

...

i looked back over them about two months after camden was born...i read through each and every one of them...i cried those mourning tears again...i felt the loss again...until i got to the last letter...the one that i feared reading most of all because it spoke of expectations and parenting and i wasn't sure i could keep my dreams anymore...but i read it anyway, and i noticed something...that letter was for camden, and no other baby...i hadn't even understood the words that i had written until this little boy fell into my arms...that letter made more sense now than it ever had before...

" So I was thinking today….about parenting….and being the right kind of parent to you. I am bringing this up so that you understand what type of parent I wanted to be from the start….before your cute little hands and toes cloud my better judgment and I want to keep them in impeccable condition forever….I know that being a parent will be the hardest thing I will ever do…and the most fulfilling…and I want to be the one that lets you bump into things here and there…because sometimes you need to…and sometimes reality isn’t always so easy to deal with…so dealing with it is the only way that you learn. I just keep thinking of Heavenly Father and the type of parent that he is…and being that freedom of choice is what this whole plan thing is all about , I can’t help but note that sometimes he lets me fall down….and so I should let you. because that’s really what a parent is for….not to catch you…but to pick you back up. So you might be reading this and laugh a little to yourself because I am sure at times I will want to jump in and save you and I will let my better judgment falter, but know that this was my intention for you….that I tried to be the best parent I could….that I put thought into it….but I know I’m only human, and well, you know what that means. And if at some point in the future I actually do my job….I am sorry that I allowed the world, or even yourself, to hurt you…I am sorry you had to understand and feel the pain of trial…but know it was not because I didn’t love you….it was because I did."

because now more than ever i am going to want to shield that little boy of mine, i am going to want to protect him from the world, only i know it isn't fair...and that the world needs him as much as he needs the world...and so at some unforeseen point in time...i am going to have to step back, even though it will be the hardest thing i have ever done...

"You, and your future siblings, are here for me….to teach me to love more fully, to be more compassionate to others, to show more charity, to help rid myself of pride, selfishness and fear. You are my greatest blessing in this life….you are here to help me to become the person that I was meant to become here on this earth, because no one else could ever teach me what you are here to teach me. You are not our trial, you are our reward."