November 20, 2011
A letter to my daughter.
The daughter I never had and may never have because my ovaries may no longer be functional when I am finished with chemotherapy treatment. (In 6 months) *hopefully.
Dear Daughter,
I am sorry. I am sorry I killed you, I am sorry I killed your potential to be born before you were even conceived. You see, when I asked the doctor about saving some of my eggs so you might come into being one day I was thinking of your birthday. I was thinking of the day which passes, each year of my life, when your birthday happens, or would happen, and I don’t even know it. I don’t even know yet to celebrate, or to not celebrate your birth or lack of birth, death day. I was thinking about the day I’ve always assumed occurs once throughout the year, without my knowing, that would one day be known to me as the most special, most important day of my life. Your birth.
When I asked him about this, asked Dr. Miller about saving my eggs, he rustled up his eyebrows together and said “Honestly, if we took the time to do that, I don’t think you would make it.” I chose my life over your potential life and I hope you don’t blame me, my shining star. If I had waited to save half of you from my own body before beginning chemo treatment I may not have lived to see you fertilized. I am sorry. I am sorry for both of us.
So, to my daughter, my shining star, who in my own mind I’ve named: Cricket Chloe Benjamin Blue. C.C.B.B. I loved that name. Dear Chloe, I do love you.
You would have been like me, with long blond (or brown) hair. You would have made me laugh and dance with you all the time and forget my own fears of inhibition. I would have loved you as my mother could not love me. When I had to run away from life, from my husband, from my country, from my family, from my mother, from my sister, from my father, from my language, from my religion. When I had to run out on all of this (it is inevitable) I would have done what my mother could not or would not do: I would’ve taken you with me and loved you as part of my own body. I would have dressed you in white dresses and brushed your hair every morning before school while you ate toast and gummy vitamins and drank your orange juice. I would have braided it for you every night so it would be curly, or crinkled or straight, or however you wanted it. I would have loved you regardless. I would have planned my outfits to compliment yours and bought you a kitten on your birthday.
Dear Daughter of mine,
I would have cooked you roast vegetables and tofu (maybe even chicken if you wanted it) and salad for dinner and let you have gelato for dessert. I would have taken you to Mexico and Europe and Guatemala and taught you to hold fast on the back of my motorcycle and trained your cat to ride with us. We would have gone to music festivals, just us and danced and danced. I would have taught you how to make cocktails and how to cure mommy’s hangover at seven.
I would always let you run outside to catch the ice cream truck and followed quickly with cash in hand.
When I designed clothes, I would ask for your advice. You would have been my light, my pride and joy, my piece of myself manifested in the world as a self creating creation from birth. You would would have been my goddess and my queen, my legend and my life.
I also doubted having you, before all this. Children are a deficit. Expensive, time limiting, and like I’ve often said, they get in the way of everything I love. Maybe I would need to change what I love. What I love now:
Shopping
Sex
Eating dinner in restaurants
School
Sleeping in
Going to bed late
Smoking cigarettes
Smoking pot
Spending an hour to get ready to go anywhere
Petting my cat
Writing
Etc.
Etc.
These things can all be made more difficult or more complicated by the presence of a child. I doubted having you for all these reasons. And today I still do.
You might, after all, still be an option.
Love,
Mommy
© Elizabeth Blue – 2012
Luminous Blue 
When Elizabeth writes, as in these last two posts, she speaks my soul! I so resonate with this beautiful, edgy, fierce girl. Reading this letter to her daughter took me on a journey into my past where my mother lived, into my soul and dreams and spirits and intentions as a young woman and simultaneously illuminated my present moment in love for my own daughter…and then shot me into the future, seeing my girl so much like Elizabeth too!
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Oh my God. This is just beautiful,more than beautiful. This is just perfect. I love it. I will read it again and again. Thank u! Thank u for sharing it. Your daughter is an amazing woman with a big heart and spirit. She will always be with you… And with this blog, she will always be with people who didnt meet her. I love it. Im ur daughters fan. Im your fan: you strong woman. I admire you, i admire ur daughter. Thank you so much.
Gaby
Torreón, Coahuila, México 😉
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Dear Gaby, thank you so much for reading and for your loving, heartfelt comments! I am grateful you’ve found my blog and Elizabeth’s writing – she’d love knowing she has fans! I’m sure she does, actually! many blessings, Lucia
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This is so painful, Lucia. How she ached for a daughter! And when you see so many orphans, neglected childhoods around, how can you not curse this injustice brought upon by life? Being an Absurdist helps, but only sometimes – when I was young, I felt that suffering was wrong. But life has taught me otherwise – every beauty in this world had to once suffer the inhumanness of life. Suffering makes us truly beautiful – in the sense of the soul. Her aching desire for a daughter is the same as mine – but I understand the unexpected yet inevitable certainty of death. I know that death may not be as kind with the child. And that stops me. I may be wrong but it sees easier to pass a whole life alone than to bring someone into that very life and then be left behind..
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Thank you for reading this and commenting. It’s ironic that much of her life, Elizabeth thought she did not want children, but when it seemed the possibility might be taken away, through chemo side effects or through death, it brought the desire to have a child to the surface in a powerful way. It feels to me that her writing is a large part of what she was able to give birth to, and I treasure it.
Red – I have to add that, of course, whether or not to have a child is an individual decision, AND, there is nothing I would change. I am so grateful for the 22 years I had with Elizabeth, and the 20 years so far with my other daughter as well, and no pain I may go through could change that. The gifts are immense, the pain small in comparison, no matter how huge.
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So beautiful.
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Thank you for reading, and for your comment!
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Even as a toddler Vic wanted to be a mommy. It is truly her only ambition in life. She was an amazing mother to her two sons despite debilitating pain. I often wonder whether they knew how many tears it took to pack their school lunch boxes.
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Wow, amazing what we are capable of! What a blessing that she was able to fulfill this deep desire and that her sons had the opportunity to know their devoted mother!
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Very thought provoking. She seemed to be a very soulful, insightful woman, that everyone would like to meet.. Thank you for sharing this, I know it must be hard…
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Thank you for your comment. Elizabeth was a very insightful woman, who could be quiet with her peers, but on paper really allowed herself the freedom to express her soul’s essence.
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Heartbreaking and yet so beautiful. Thanks for sharing, love and Blessings
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Thanks for reading Nannie Sue. Love to you too.
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Extraordinary…loving the mother she already was to all of us.
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Thank you Irene. Yes, she was a mother to us all in a way she never imagined…
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