You were conceived, and your mother loved you immediately with her whole heart. 

In your earliest days, your hair and your face would already be programmed to take on much of your mother’s likeness. But something in your nascent genetics would also go quietly awry, taking you and your mom on a trajectory that some recommended to be cut short. They said you wouldn’t be worth it – not worth the pain, not worth the existence.

Your mother grieved the vision of the future she once held of a life with a healthier version of you. But still, she loved you with her whole heart, and set her life upon protecting and nurturing you. 

You had next to nothing to offer the world. No words, no abilities, only an occasional glance or impish smile. Even those were written off by most everyone.

But I swear, in the months I spent caring for you and your mom, I beheld the undeniable bond between you two that no one could substantiate with medical or even visual data. The bond went beyond data, beyond attempts at justification for your quiet existence. Some may have called it one-sided, but I knew that you knew, your mother loved you with her whole heart, and you loved her in your own unmeasurable way.

I don’t know what it was like for you to have only been truly and deeply treasured by one solitary person for the entirety of your life. Maybe two or three, but not many more. Every child deserves to be loved and treasured by a community. You were written off more than you were embraced by the world, but your one person pushed back with the fullness and fierceness of her love and said you were worth it. 

You were immensely loved and treasured by one, and somehow, I think this was enough for you. 

I’m not sure why you chose Mother’s Day to say good-bye. Maybe it was to highlight to the rest of us how deeply a mother’s love will run, in the highs and the lows, in the clinging to and the letting go. 

Rest in peace, sweet girl. It was an honor to be your nurse.