Violet

From Violet's mom:

In July of 2011, we learned that our second daughter, Violet Marie LeDrew, wouldn’t live long after birth if she was born alive at all. Color drained out of our lives that summer as we prepared for death and birth simultaneously. The waiting was torture and yet every day pregnant with her was a gift.

She was born in November 2011 and lived 2.5 beautiful days. The urgency to pack a lifetime of love into her short life dissipated as the calm of her existence touched everyone who met her (and who learned of her after). I knew her wholly and completely in those few days.

She teaches me just as much every day as her brother and sister who are here living with us. Relationships, those between a mother and her child, those between siblings, do not end with death. I began to write her story because I felt that if I didn’t I would surely implode. I tattooed her footprints on my foot. While hers never touched the earth I carry her with me with each step I take. Over the past 10 years, our lives have become rich with color again, beginning with Violet.