Baby Philomena Grace

October 16, 2020

Baby Philomena Grace

There is a little baby girl, who I would love to talk about and write to.

Dear Baby girl, Philomena Grace,

the 8 months, 33 weeks you grew in womb of your mother. You grew healthy and strong, kicking your little legs and wiggling around waiting to meet the world. You were to be born and loved, sucking your thumb and even chew your sweet baby toes as you grew nice and chubby. Who knows what your favorite first foods would be, maybe sweet potatoes or mashed avocado. Maybe you would love watching bright colors swing in a baby dangly toy and screech with delight, letting your little world know that you were here to be heard. Perhaps as you grew you would pull yourself up to try standing and look at your fluffy family cat in the face, laugh and fall thumping on your diaper, just to try to stand again. Little baby, you were meant to live, and try, and keep trying, because you are a beloved little daughter of a good Father. One day you would have your first day at school and your mom would have looked you square in the face and told you to sit in the front and remind you how smart you are. I bet you would have been the best in your math class. Your father would have laughed reading your first sentences as you learned to read, little one. Who knows what charming ways you would have mis-spelled words or written wild outlandish letters to Santa.

Your grandparents would have loved reading them, no doubt, and also sending each and every toy except for a real panda on your list. One day you would visit the zoo, the beach and see the immense ocean for the very first time. Your mom would have wrapped you up in a big beach blanket to watch the sunset and share chips and a sandwich with you. Baby girl, the list of hopes and dreams goes on and on. Your first time driving, your prom dress, art made at home, fingerprint crafts continuing through college. Maybe your dreams and hopes would be different and bloom as you bloomed into a beautiful young lady.

My little dear, from my mama heart, I love you and am sorry you didn’t get welcomed into the world with love. I am sorry your birth mama got scared and did somethings to hurt you before you were born in a dark sad restaurant bathroom where your little life ended quietly by her hands with no one to see. Police called you an abortion. You are Philomena. They judged you a fetus. You are Philomena, all 7 pounds proud. Maybe your mama was pressured, maybe she was afraid of what people would say, or maybe she was angry. But you, dear little one, are ours in our hearts. Even if the warm loving arms of a mother through adoption couldn’t embrace you, even if through the eyes of a mother through adoption I couldn’t look at you and marvel at you sighing as you sleep, you are ours. We miss you, we love you and we mourn your death. You are ours in every sense of it.

Each unborn baby is a part of the mystical body of Christ, each suffering person, each fragile person in need. And because of that, you are ours and we are yours. Tomorrow we will celebrate the triumph of your little female life. You were meant to grow, to love, to be tried by life, and to give back to life as God asks us to do. You did, my little dear, you gave us all love because our hearts are broken. You unearthed compassion in each one of us. You breathed hope knowing that one day in heaven there will be not one person deemed unwanted. You are little, but you are fierce.

I recall being like your mom and holding onto my little one in my womb feeling her grow. I recall sharp pains and entering a public bathroom feeling terrified with the pain and terrified of what I knew what was happening. I recall holding in my hand a tiny little baby and hoping to see her move even if she was the size of a new born kitten. She was far tinier than you. I wrapped her in towels as gently as I could and blew into her face seeing her squirm for a moment and that was it. Bathrooms are lonely places for life to end, and are cavernous tombs for a terrified mother to find herself in. I wrap my arms around your mama and invite her to visit your grave, invite her to reach for the hand of Mercy from God who loves her deeply. She too, is His beloved daughter and this was not His plan.

Baby girl, tomorrow we bury your little body. Father will celebrate your funeral mass and your family, strangers you never met, will feel their hearts beat in sorrow for your death. But your death is a beginning my little love, your little body and soft hair blowing gently is with Our Mother and at Jesus dear feet in the glories of heaven to live forever. There, little love, you are no doubt in the company of other babies who met a devastating violent death even in toilets. Pray for us little Philomena Grace, that we learn to love more openly, learn to help more sacrificially without limits to our comfort, pray for us to be one little bit as loving as Jesus was when He carried His cross for us. I pray that we carry our cross of sorrow for your loss faithfully and that your sweet little life may help some mama out there see the miracle of her baby and choose life through adoption with a loving family rather than a death to them both.

With my mama heart that loves you….sweet girl..