Author’s Note
For a long time, I blamed my body for ending our daughter’s life.
What began as a private journal entry became my first-place submission in the Unsealed Writing Challenge. This essay reflects on the birth and death of our daughter, Cindy Sue, and how she changed my relationship with my body.
Follow to the end to read the piece as it appeared in the Unsealed Writing Challenge with original photo submission, and listen to my conversation with host Lauren Brill about Cindy Sue’s birth and death, and what came after.
Lessons on forgiveness from my dead daughter.
“I can’t stand the sight of you. You are the reason our family is broken. And now you’ve destroyed me.
And yet you have the nerve to ask if I have ever really loved you.
As if this isn’t hard for me, too.
As if I’ve used you.
As if this is my punishment for the questionable decisions of our youth.
I am a good person. I want what is best for our children.
You are the selfish one.
You are the liar.
You are the reason she is dead.”
— Letter to My Body, October 2018
Every sunrise after her short life—for months, then years—I woke wrapped in the same nightmare of death and guilt, my body pleading for forgiveness.
“I’m giving you another day,” it whispered through the breeze as I walked along the seaside sidewalk toward home.
“Won’t you forgive me? Won’t you love me?”
Every morning, my answer was the same: No. I am not ready.
My days filled efficiently—lists in the morning, activities in the afternoon, red wine at night—pushing the pleas deeper into my soft underbelly, where they couldn’t reach me.
As our daughter clung to her small life in the hospital room, my heart hovered above us for nearly two weeks. When the final machine was unplugged and her last breath released, I shattered into a million pieces as I walked on without her.
My world stopped when she died.
Then it began spinning backward.
Minutes rewound endlessly—decisions made and unmade, words swallowed, questions unanswered—until the axis snapped and I was flung out of orbit.
Still, everyone said, “You’re so strong. I don’t know how you do it.”
And so it was decided—by them, and by me—that I would carry the blame. Private shame stacked itself carefully inside me, a house of cards built from unspoken judgment.
When my husband and I returned home after our final goodbye, I lost hours in the bathroom mirror, staring at a stranger.
My body.
Stitched together like a jigsaw puzzle. Altered shape. Extra skin. Guilt coiled around my midsection, holding me hostage.
I searched my eyes for somewhere soft to land.
I once moved freely—danced, played, lived easily inside you. You gave me a healthy child who is alive, reminding me daily that good has come from this body.
Still, one belief overpowered all others:
My body killed our baby.
That is what I believed.
Until our daughter asked me to believe something else.
And for her, I would do anything.
Another morning walk, ocean air and emotion moved through me as my feet carried me forward. Practicing breath. Seeking peace.
She would be almost five years old now.
The frothy tide lapped at the shore. My feet sank into broken shells and sand. The hairs at the nape of my neck rose—the familiar signal of her presence.
Her voice arrived gently, not in my ears but in my soul:
“I wish you would love yourself as much as you love me. Your body brought me into the world—into our family, into your life—and I am forever grateful. You should be, too.”
I smiled. I know this voice now.
Our daughter.
She has pulled me back from the edge of midnight mourning, and she is reaching for me again—asking for compassion.
She is giving me permission to thank my body—not a rigid wall of strength and resilience, but a permeable space filled with mercy and hope.
And the capacity for both fault and miracle.
When she died, I thought it was only an ending.
I know now it was also a beginning.
Of forgiveness.
Of self-love.
Of believing in something greater.
It is taking time—years, maybe lifetimes—but I am finally listening.
“I know we haven’t always agreed. But when painful memories pull you away, or you quietly come undone in the still of the night, I will wait. You will always be met with open arms.
We are a work in progress.
Thank you for staying.
Thank you for believing.
Thank you for giving me another chance.”
— Letter from Your Body, October 2025
