Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see

Dear God,

If you can hear me, I want my mommy to have a baby by next Christmas so she won't be lonely when I'm gone.

And while you're at it can you do me another teeny weeny favor? Can I meet my baby sister or brother before I come to heaven?

Thank you in anticipation.

P.S: I asked Santa last Christmas and he didn't deliver. Aunt Mary said you're the surest plug so don't disappoint me.

Sara.

Anastasia covered her mouth with her palm as tears slid down her cheeks. She thought Sara’s sickness had shown her what it meant to be overwhelmed but as she lowered herself to the floor beneath the Christmas tree, she felt that old feeling wash over her.

Source
The feeling that threatened to strangle her that day at the hospital, at exactly 10:32 pm.

“After running some tests on her, we discovered that she has sinus infections which led us to take further tests,” Dr Whitney took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. “I'm sorry, Mr and Mrs Langley, Sara has Cystic fibrosis”

The first thing Anastasia had done was look at the clock just above Dr Whitney’s head. It was a squeeze from her husband that made her know she was trembling uncontrollably. The tears hadn't come until she returned to the children's ward and saw her daughter.

There were tubes in Sara’s nose but she was smiling.

“Hi mom, the doctor said I look really cool with these tubes. Am I like a superhero?”

Anastasia had smiled with watery eyes and excused herself under the guise of going to the toilet. There she curled under the wash hand basin and held tightly onto her knees as if they could suppress the pain in her chest.

It was there, under that wash hand basin, that she emptied how she really felt.

Sara was only 7 then.

As she grew, the symptoms worsened. Initially, she was only wheezing and wasn't gaining any weight, but with time, she developed a persistent cough, frequent loose stools, and abdominal pain.

Every day they were not at the hospital, they were at the pharmacy getting drugs or by Sara's side trying to make her feel better about herself. Not like she needed it anyway, she was happier than Anastasia and her husband put together.

Anastasia was still trembling when her husband walked in with a sled he had been making to help Sara go out for the first time since that week.

“Stasia?” He called out, dropping the sled and heading upstairs.

“Mark?” He turned and frowned at her then hurried over when he saw the tears.

“What's wrong?” She handed the paper that Sara had scribbled onto him. His eyes teared up immediately and without another word, he put his arms around her.

“That's okay now,” he said after some time. “Let's go upstairs. Sara has been waiting for us”

They walked up the stairs hand in hand, trying to hold in the emotions that threatened to tear them apart.

“Mom?”

“Sara?” She rushed to her daughter's side, taking her hand.

“Mom,” Sara smiled sweetly. “I had a dream”

“Alright, then darling. Let's hear it”

“You gave me a Christmas present, A little box. When I opened it guess what was in it”

“A Barbie doll?” Mark offered, Sara loved Barbie but she shook her head in the negative.

“It was a baby. A girl. And she has dark hair just like daddy” Anastasia and her husband exchanged knowing looks.

“You really want another sibling then,” Anastasia said quietly. Sara frowned.

“No, I already have one”

Mark and his wife exchanged confused looks.

Later that night when they were in bed, Anastasia tapped on her husband's shoulder.

“Mark?”

Mm….”

“Does CF make someone delusional?”

She felt her husband shake his head.

“We'll have to ask Doctor Whitney, baby. We'll just have to ask”.

But there was no need to ask because 15 days later when it was their next visit to the hospital, Anastasia went in for a test as she had suddenly developed a fever that would not go away.

She was not just pregnant, she was already 4 months gone.

“We cannot handle a new baby with Sara’s condition” Anastasia was weeping profusely now. Her blue eyes were a darker shade than normal and her eye bags sagging even more.

“You're 4 months gone. There's nothing we can do babe. Maybe this is God replacing Sara for us”

Anastasia turned angry eyes at him.

“You want her to die too?”

Mark held her hands, “It would be better for all of us. There's no known cure, she's going to suffer almost all her life!” Anastasia snatched her hands from his and ran into the bathroom, bolting the door behind her.

As the days passed, her stomach grew bigger and Sara grew worse but rubbing her mother's stomach made her feel much better than all the medicine she was taking. Sometimes, Sara spoke to the baby and she kicked so violently that Anastasia thought a leg would sneak out of the womb.

3 days after Anastasia’s EDD, Sara requested to sleep beside her mother, rubbing her stomach and singing herself to sleep.

She never woke up.

Anastasia went into forced labor immediately after she realized her child was gone and had to be operated upon for her baby to stay alive.

When the bundle was brought to her, it was a dark-haired girl, just like Sara had predicted.

“We'll call her Hope,” Mark said, confirming Anastasia's thoughts.

Hope, that was what Sara had first said when she touched her mother's protruding belly for the first time, and it was the first time the child had leaped so violently in response to her sister.