For you, David, which means "Beloved" in Hebrew:

You are truly my dearest friend and the love of my life. When I first met you, we spent so many hours outside in the forests and hills, and I loved the way the sun would shine in your hair and bring out the lovely colors. So when I think of you, I always think of sun, and wind, and the smell of the pine forests. That will always be my impression of you.

Our first year was rosy, and full of promise. And you could have left me, on that awful night of the emergency surgery, when the doctors told me I would never "be a mother." Lots of weak-hearted men may have done just that. I know you longed for children, too, and I wanted desperately to be the one to bear your beautiful children. Because I know they would have been beautiful, like you are. I can't explain it, but I felt such shame, being "not normal", like some people hurtfully put it. And I sometimes want to run away and hide from this weird turn of events in my (and your) life.

But you held my hand tightly through the next years, and the next four surgeries. I don't know where you found the strength, because I sure didn't have it. I knew though, from the first time I met you, that you had God in you. You haven't changed at all, you were always like that. When you were baptized at easter, wow! I just wanted to sing at the top of my lungs. But it was just that you looked like an angel.

When mom and dad and Dale and Doug turned their backs on me, you made me want to keep living. When I am pierced to the heart by a child's sweet smile, you always let me cry. Even when you may have been hurting, too.

What can I say, my dearie? You are everything that is good and precious and happy, and everyone loves to be around you--especially me! We joke about that Ann Landers column, but it is true! You are "wise, kind, and strikingly handsome." And a brilliant geologist to boot!

I don't think you know the depth of this ache, though, and I don't want to burden you. I will work very hard to get over it, or learn to live with it. I just feel completely alone in this, losing my uterus and ovaries, and being childless. And now the fatigue and horrible muscle and joint pain, and the depression that comes and goes. My mother never prepared me for anything of this proportion. And she turned away after the surgery, like I was some old rag that was no longer useful.

I love you forever, David Scott. I will hold your strong hand and keep going. I am so very proud of you, and everything you do and everything you are.

Love always,
Diane

Jesus, Mary, Joseph.