By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 22 August 2000
For Julie Kate
My Precious Julie Kate...
I can't remember the last time I sent you a letter. All throughout my pregnancy I kept a journal for you. I wrote letters and poems to you so that someday when you're old enough to ask,"Why did my birth mommy give me away?" you'll know that it wasn't for lack of love that I signed away my parental rights to you and handed you to your mommy and daddy outside the hospital on that long December day.
For quite some time now I have tried to turn all those feelings off and get on with my life. I've tried college and poetry and other things that weren't so good. Through all of this, your parents have been so kind and generous. They let me and your maternal great-grandparents see you last December on your third birthday. It meant so much to me being able to spend time with you and see the little girl I used to be in your big blue innocent eyes and mischievous smile. My memories of that day are bittersweet. When you sang "The More We Get to Together" out of the blue in your pure little voice, my heart cracked open. "The more we get together the happier we'll be..." Of course I was happy to see you that day, but when I got home to my empty apartment in Bridgeport that night I cried some hard tears.
So I know it is for the best that you are faraway now and the next time I see you, you won't be a baby anymore. And maybe I won't feel so much like a mommy. This mother love is hard to bury, sweet girl. Even if I have other children someday, my love for you will never diminish or be eclipsed.
I tried to heal myself for three years. Not just from losing you...don't ever think that. I've got so many scars. I've just felt it all hitting me especially hard these past three years. Being a mother, if only for nine months, brought it all home.
This is to let you know that I'm okay now and will only get better. I'm 27 years old, baby girl, and sometimes I feel like I am 80. But I have found someone who loves me more than I thought I would ever be loved. Finally! After years of guilt and self-loathing I have found a human being who embraces me exactly as I am. I can be so ugly and mean sometimes, like any true survivor. Now that someone wants to give me true love, I push it away because I don't trust it. I scream,"How can you love me?!" I ask for reasons. I ask for proof. I say harsh things and then I cry and apologize. I say,"I can't promise you that things will be better tomorrow." He leaves the room. He comes back and wipes away the tears with a Kleenex.
Everyone should have this kind of love. When someone is at their absolute lowest and meanest and ugliest, the thing to do is give them a hug and not let go. No matter how much they kick and scream and spit. Then there would be less serial killers and rapists and more poets and teachers. Then there would be more "Bugaloos" and "The More We Get Together" and "Come Together" and grateful spinning ecstasy for the sake of ecstasy and less angry spray paint scrawls and self-inflicted razor wounds.
The love I gave to you for nine months and will feel for you for the rest of my life I am now trying to give to and feel for myself. There are many people to thank...your birth grandmother, my mom, your birth aunt, my sister, your birth uncle, my brother, and a guy named Christopher David Lake who is the best friend I have ever had and the only human being I have ever known who has consistently given me unconditional love.
My wish for you is that you will find a love like this much sooner than I did. I love you so very much and now I am going to bed because I am tired.
More Love Than You Can Imagine,
your birth mommy (misti)_
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