Walk in the water...

Dear Miranda,

Daddy went down to the ocean today. He walked in the sand and out into the water. He watched all the other daddies playing with their babies...daddy misses you a lot today. His tears taste like the ocean.



I love you. I miss you. Give mommy a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Daddy

Location:Crown Point Cir,Corolla,United States

Family...

Dear Sara,

The Visser clan gathers today, on the western banks of the Atlantic Ocean, for several days of family fellowship. It's difficult to describe the feelings associated with this. Seeing everyone will be good and fun. Seeing everyone will also be very difficult...a full house that feels empty because your voice and laughter aren't going to be there intermingling with the rest.

A soft sadness covers me today, seeping into every thought and emotional crack and crevice.

I love you. I miss you. I always will.

Love,
Chad

Fairy tales...

Dear Sara,

I've been traveling a lot lately. It gives me plenty of time to think and process. For some reason the whole concept of fairy tales popped into my mind the other day. They're so happy...but I think that's because all we get to read is the beginning. They all end with, "and they lived happily ever after."

The fairy tale doesn't have the chapter where you sit in a broken van and watch the life draining from your wife's face, feeling helpless and scared. It doesn't have the chapter where you hold your daughter to your chest and wait...and wait...as her heart beats its final beats. No one would want to read the fairy tale where we really got to see what happens later on. If feels like our fairy tale ended with, "and they lived happily, until the end."

The hard part about losing you this way is that there was no time to say goodbye. I feel horrible about it, but I'm sometimes jealous of people who lose their loved ones after a long battle with an illness. They sometimes get months, or years, to say goodbye. I don't think that would make it hurt any less, but I do wonder if it "mutes" the pain of loss due to stretching the goodbye out over time. I guess I don't know, and I don't really want to test my hypothesis.

I think about things I would have wanted to say to you, if there had been time. I'd want to thank you for the "fairy tale." For showing me that true love does exist, and that it is simple and pure, not complex and chemical. As I travel I have time to think about what that means for my life. I'd want to thank you for showing me that marriage is good, wonderful, full of wonder and adventure, and something that SHOULD be pursued, not given up on. I'd want to thank you for making marriage something that I want to experience and share again with someone else, using the template and skills created and learned over 15 years. Thank you for that life gift.

I feel like I'm moving into the final, but longest stage of grief. The one that lasts the rest of my life. I've just recently started to have "moments" when a normal, everyday event sparks the memory of you, and Miranda, and brings soft tears to my eyes. It usually passes within in minute or two, and often ends with a happy smile of remembrance on my face. I have come to accept that my love for you has reached its peak (but what a peak it was) and will grow no more; but, it will also never shrink. It's in stasis, unchanged until the day when the Lord calls me home to join you, and all those who have gone before.

I love you. I miss you. Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Chad

Hallmark doesn't make a card for this...

Dear Sara,

Happy Mother’s Day…

I know you’ll be having a good day whether it’s celebrated in Heaven or not. Things are a little less happy down here. I was so looking forward to being with you and Miranda today. I started thinking about this day and how great it was going to be back on June 19, 2010. Now I’m not sure what to do with myself. I guess it’s a good thing the day is packed with “activity” for me.

I hope you don’t mind, I’ve been writing to you a little less frequently. It’s not that I don’t think about you all the time, or that I’m forgetting about you and Miranda. As time moves on, I find there’s less and less to say. My heart feels your absence, just as keenly as it did 3 months ago, and no words can change that. I know that that empty spot will just always be there, regardless of what happens over the course of the rest of my life.

I guess I don’t have a lot to say today, either. My tears are just going to have to do my talking for me. I mostly just wanted to wish you a Happy Mother’s Day, mommy. If God is gracious, He’s giving you an extra special day in Heaven, at least I hope He is.

I love you. I miss you. Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Chad

Like a child...

Dear Miranda,

Today is Mother’s Day. It also marks 3 months since you joined mommy in Heaven. It’s bittersweet, to say the least. I hope they celebrate Mother’s Day in Heaven. I hope you get to spend a special day with mommy.

Back down here on earth, I just recently started saying “yes,” without hesitating to think about it, when people who don’t know me ask if I have children. I only have to explain that you’re in Heaven every once in a while.

Daddy loves you. He wishes you were here, with mommy, so that we could all snuggle in bed together this morning and celebrate this special day.

I love you. I miss you. Give mommy a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Daddy

My dear sweet daughter...

Dear Miranda,

I watched a video clip today that grandma filmed, on Sunday, at the memorial service for children who have passed away at CS Mott Children's Hospital.

I want to hold you again. I want to feel your little heart beat against my fingertips. I want to touch your soft skin, and kiss your beautiful little feet, hands, and face.

There's a hole in daddy's heart that will never be filled. It may become surrounded, encased by a cocoon of love, but it will never be filled.

I miss you and mommy a lot today. I know you're having fun in Heaven, but I still wish you were here.

I love you. I miss you. Give mommy a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Daddy

I dreamed a dream...

Dear Sara,

I dreamed about you last night. I know I've dreamed about you frequently since the accident, but this is the first dream I've had that was this vivid; so vivid that I've been thinking about it all day long, as I drove from Louisiana to Louisville, Kentucky.

I was at your apartment. I say "your" apartment because it was not "our" apartment. I didn't recognize it, it wasn't some place we, or you, had every lived, and yet it was full of your unfinished crafts and projects (and a cute little gray rabbit who hopped around the room...free range.) I was asking you about why we couldn't be together, why you couldn't come home. You were sad, not because we weren't together anymore, but because you couldn't find a way to help me understand why we couldn't be together. You were happy when we were together, but you were even more happy now. You kept trying to assure me that it was going to be OK, that given time I would be happy again, just not with you. I woke up with a broken (re-broken) heart and I've been fighting it all day.

I think this is probably the result of my heart and my head trying to close the gap between what I rationally know is true, that you won't be back, and what my heart wants to be true, that this is all just a bad dream from which I can still wake up.

As I said, I've been driving all day. When I left Louisiana this morning, my heart was full of expectation, I'm heading home! Over the course of the day, it began to dawn on me that this isn't like the trips I've taken before. Going home used to mean you were there, waiting at the door, ready for a big hug and a kiss. Going home doesn't seem as exciting now.

We're quickly coming up on the 25% milestone. Nearly 1/4 of a year gone since you left. It seems too fast, it doesn't feel right to watch you and Miranda slip this quickly into my "past." My head keeps urging me to move forward, to climb that hill, take those steps; my heart keeps dropping anchor.


I love you. I miss you. Give Miranda a kiss from daddy.

Love,
Chad