A letter from her daddy

On the way home from the hospital we were just so so broken and could barely  function or speak more than 2 words to each other. We both dreaded going home to where Francesca’s beautiful nursery was with all her wee things. We hated that we would need to travel back there in the same car we arrived at the hospital in full of excitement, where her car seat was that had been fitted by her daddy a few weeks before while we waited on her arrival, knowing we would never get to take the obligatory photo that mostly all mums do of the proud daddy’s carrying a car seat as they leave the hospital with their beautiful wee miracles safely tucked up inside.  God, thinking back we spent months deciding on that bloody car seat.. would it be safe enough ?, comfy enough?, big enough for her long legs?… Thankfully for me, Steven had taken out the car seat so I wouldn’t have to deal with seeing it which must have been so hard for him to do.

Thankfully Stevens mum and his aunt had thought to come back to ours to put the heating on as it was in the middle of our freezing cold winter that Scotland loves to hit us with. They had also noticed that flowers had been sent from Stevens work as condolences and had been delivered to our lovely neighbours which they kindly went in to pick up for us, updating them of our sad news at the same time. The neighbours actually thought these were congratulation flowers so were excited to hear our news when we got home. This is something we will be forever grateful to Stevens family for as we didn’t have the strength to do that ourselves and dreaded bumping into them while walking Dakota or even something like taking the bins out.

I felt incredibly weak from the shock of everything and had decided to go for a lie down for an hour and had left Steven alone downstairs which must have felt like hours on end for him. When I woke up it felt like the grief had newly hit me all over again the way it does every morning now and it was obvious Steven was just as distraught. To my surprise he had taken that time to write a letter to Francesca about all the things he would miss out on by losing her. This was a complete surprise to me as  Steven is what you would call a “mans man” and doesn’t bare his feelings often but it was such a beautiful letter . It was a daddy’s perspective and we even decided to have it read out at her funeral and for that I will be forever proud of him for writing those words to her.

Steven has given me permission to share this letter publicly so that any other daddy’s or grandpas who may be reading this might feel some comfort to know we understand how much they are hurting too.

A letter to Francesca

I will never feel you kick your mums stomach again.

I will never see your chest rise as u sleep.

I will never hear or feel your breath.

I will never see you open your eyes.

I will never get to feed you.

I will never hear you cry.

I will never see your face smile.

I will never hear you giggle and laugh.

I will never feel your hand grip mine.

I will never hear you say mum or dad.

I will never see you take your first step.

I will never see you reach out your arms to grab me.

I will never see you running towards me or catch you in my arms.

I will never push you on the swings.

I will never get to walk you to school or pick you up.

I will never get to teach you how to swim.

I will never get to embarrass you in front of your friends.

I will never catch you smoking and shout at you.

I will never see you go in a huff with me.

I will never see you ride a bike.

I will never get to teach you to drive.

I will never get to buy your first car.

For Francesca Alexis Johnston, born on the 8/2/18 at 6.01am, weighing 8lb11oz. Stillborn but forever loved and forever missed xxx