What it means to be loved

A few days after delivering Kaylee Hope, Joey and I were given tickets to go to a Mark Schultz concert together. If you're not familiar with his music, a lot of his songs tell a story, so during the concert he would often preface a song by sharing the story behind it. I love it when songwriters share how songs came about. It is rare that having that added information has made me do anything but appreciate and understand the song more.

That night Mark sang a song I'd never heard before. He prefaced the song by telling us a story his wife, an OB/GYN, had shared with him about a couple who was expecting a little girl. Before he could say anything further I knew this song was going to make me bawl like a baby, no pun intended.

We had met Mark before the concert and as he started singing the song I sarcastically thought to myself, "Really Mark?! You know our story and you're going to sing a song about a baby...do you want to see me cry?!" As much as I didn't want to cry, it was where I was at. My daughter had been gone for a mere 3 days and at that point there isn't much you can do to stop tears, and quite frankly, you shouldn't.

The song started out fine and I was able to keep myself together for a little bit...

For five months and eight days my wife and I had waited
Getting ready for our baby girl
But when he called the doctor said "I need to see you"
and "could you come in soon"
then something died inside of me to sit with him and hear
the tests that said our baby may not live to be a year
then turning to my wife and he said "what do you wanna do?"
and she said...

And here is where it gets fun (translation: the chorus where Jamie breaks down)...

I wanna give her the world
I wanna hold her hand
I wanna be her mom for as long as I can
and I wanna live every moment until that day comes
I wanna show her what it means to be loved

I just lost it. There was nothing I wanted more badly than to simply be able to be her mom. For a few months that gift was mine, but "that day" had already come and gone and I'm no longer the one who gets to show her what it means to be loved. My heart was and is so full of love for my Kaylee girl, but it is also so very broken.

As hard as that song can be to hear, I LOVE hearing it. I love the way it affirms the validity of her life and my love for her. To have someone put into perfect words how I felt about my daughter, despite the expected outcome, is good for my heart.

Every time I've tried to write about how I felt about Kaylee during the time I had here with her, nothing seems to describe it better than the chorus of that song. It's exactly how I felt about my sweet Kaylee Hope.

The song of course has the happy ending that Joey and I didn't get and that was hard to hear too. Giving up our daughter (even when we didn't have a choice) is the hardest thing we've done thus far and not a day goes by that I don't wish she were here.

The song is often in my head and though it is hard to hear, I love it. I loved her with all my heart and it's so good to be reminded of all that she was and is to us. If you care to hear the entire song, here is a YouTube link.