Maybe one day I will be able to write a letter to my girls and share it with everyone.  

Back in May of 2009, my mom decided to enter crisis mode and booked two flights to New Mexico.  It was supposed to be the weekend of my baby shower- invitations have been made, but not sent when the twins died- so there wasn’t anything else to do.  We stayed in a New Mexican bed and breakfast with M&M’s containers everywhere.

It was warm, and after dinners we would wander the streets and duck into small stores.  I didn’t have any money- all of it had gone to buy a newer, bigger car for when the twins came.  They died less than two weeks after that.

“Letter to My Daughter” by Maya Angelou caught my eye.  Its circular rainbow mosaic.  The title.  My breath stopped for a moment.  Could this be it?  The answers I were looking for?  I flipped to read the inside dust jacket- Maya Angelou gave birth to one son, but never had any daughters.  This was it- I had never read Maya Angelou, not even in school, but she spoke to me.  I carried the book to the counter and spent my last few pennies on it.

And the book continued to speak to me.  Sitting on my bookshelf in our duplex, moving into the closet when we moved again, stored away in a box when we moved yet again, and back to a bookshelf, in the “writer’s section” when we moved for the last time.  I never opened it, not beyond the dust jacket.  I couldn’t bring myself to- was I afraid?  Of the answers, or being disappointed?

Today I finally read the intro and the first few essays, and it is exactly the type of book I like- the pace moves with my breath, in and out, words flowing on the page like I had written them myself.  Senses ablaze.  And the stillness- where the noisy world disappears and I move with the book.  Moment after moment, page after page.

It will probably be another few years- maybe even five- before I continue to read beyond the 20 pages.  The words in the book aren’t the comforting part- the space on my shelf it displaces is.  I might never have a daughter that stays alive, lives and breaths with me, and displaces a spot in my life.  Instead, I have this book.  Maya Angelou- some important writer along the way- said more with a title to comfort me than anyone else could.  She didn’t need a daughter to be in her life, but she could still write to one.  And maybe, just maybe, I will be able to write to mine one day.