Dear Chrissy

Dear Chrissy,

I can’t stop thinking about you. I know this will be one of hundreds (if not thousands) of letters penned to you this week, but that’s just the heart of this loss community. Your pain is our pain. Your loss is our loss all over again.

Every morning I hoped to read good news that everything was okay for you and baby — knowing how those precarious final Before days felt for me — filled with uncertainty and worry but also the idea that there’s no way the worst could happen. It just can’t. But then it does.

You will question everything, but this horrible loss is not your fault. (You will likely need to say this out loud.) Why did little Jack come into your life only to leave it too soon? It will be the question that guides the rest of your life.

People will call you brave and strong, but really there will be no choice. You have two beautiful buttbutts and a loving husband and you will put one foot in front of the other for as long as it takes for the pain to become bearable. It’ll take longer than you expect, but I promise it will get easier. You will hate it when people say it will get easier.

Chrissy, every woman I know dreams of being friends with you. Your honesty and vulnerability are so so special (and also your food, duh). But now, more than ever, I wish that we really were friends. There’s so much I want to share, and so many ways I want to help. The best I can do is send you all of the positive and healing thoughts I can and post about it on the internet. I’ll be thinking of you.