To my wife:

The first time we found out you were pregnant, our lives transformed. It's hard for me to remember how we filled our afternoons after work, our middle-of-the-nights, before our son was born. The life we've built since then gives me so much joy. Your growth into motherhood has shown me even more of the ocean of your strength, grace, and love.

The second time we found out you were pregnant, I saw how deep your ocean truly is. We decided together to have an abortion, but it was your abortion. You took the medication, and felt the physical pain of your body releasing a pregnancy. And when we found out that the medication abortion hadn't worked, you endured the aspiration. I hurt so much to see you in pain, but I know that your pain was greater. Through all of these decisions, and this pain, you were so brave, and so full of love. You have so much love for our son, and so much love for our family, and so much love for the child we decided not to bring into the world, and your heart is big enough to hold all of those loves and not collapse. And you are wise enough to know, and to teach me, that these are not separate loves, but connected to each other, like all waters and oceans are connected.

The grief you carry is love, and like the ocean, you do not force it away, but you let it ebb and flow and swirl around the happiness of our days. You are brave enough to allow the grief for the child we did not have to flow alongside the love for our son, and I hope that we can teach him to be as brave and compassionate as you.

Love,

Will