Dear Hailey,

We came all this way, to the beach, so we wouldn’t have to remember. Not to forget the fact that you’re gone, because that we could never forget. :(

Just the way it all happened. Those last 3 days. Starting from the moment we boarded that dreaded flight.

But laying on this bed in the dark, my mind goes to that last night with you babygirl. With me sitting by your side. With daddy outside with the rest of the family. All of us crying, all of us praying. Then eventually as the night turned into morning, it was just me & Daddy.

Only one of us could be in the room at a time, so it was me babygirl...,right there all night while daddy waited outside in the waiting room.

Even being in a dream like state, I will never forget the moment they told me you were never going to wake up again.

It was like my soul left my body. A part of me did die that day. As I sat there for hours, watching the nurses nodding off to sleep, I remember thinking how odd for nurses to fall asleep during their shift. I remember thinking that would never happen here, in the US...

What a scandal that would be. Instead of monitoring your levels they had their heads down on their counters, taking naps.

While my baby lay there dying, they were peacefully sleeping.

How I wanted to scream babygirl. How I wanted to yell from the top of my lungs and violently shake them to wake up! To do something! To bring back the doctors and tell them they were wrong! That you were doing better and that you were going to live!

But I couldn’t do it. I could barely move. Nothing came out except hot burning tears. My body, my spirit was still. Crushed. Unmoving. I could do nothing, and the very thought was killing me. It was suffocating. There was nothing anyone could do...

I just sat there. In silence. Listening to the machines that were attached to you....I held your soft hand. Pissed at the damn nurses for taking your pretty red orange nail polish off your beautiful fingers...I didn’t know until later they had to....

It was 3 years ago today my angel.

Sometimes I still feel as soulless as I did that night. Sometimes I still feel like I’m living this life in a daze, mechanically moving, talking, with no point, no direction, no will...

I still think sometimes- that this can’t be real. I still ask myself how? How am I going to get through this? How am I going to live this life without you??

And yet here we are. Here I am...three years later.

I know better than to believe in miracles baby girl.

I know better than to ask God for any, because he didn’t grant me mine. But somehow I believe I’m still here because of “him”. And because of you. My sweet girl. I know it.

I feel it.

That night I didn’t feel you “leave me”. I was there when your last heart beat...I was there as you left this world, but I never felt you leave me babygirl...

Three years later & I know you’ve moved on. Transitioned. But I never say dead or died because in the deepest part of bones, I know that to die is to disappear and that you never have my mouse. Not ever.

Not ever will you disappear from my mind. My heart. What’s left of my soul...

I feel you close. But I just wish I could hug and kiss you...

Just one more time.

3 years later and that’s what I miss...you in your physical form. Your laughter. Your hugs. You...all of you....completely, entirely. My sweet Hailey Anne