In Memory of Our Baby Duck

Earlier this week, we sent out memorial cards for the anniversary of Eliza's birthday.  Mostly to our family and a few friends.  I'm a big fan of the old fashioned correspondence, and David and I have sent out Christmas cards every year since we got married.  (Except for last year, when our photo cards featuring our smiling faces and my pregnant belly arrived the day after our daughter died (Irony, you are a cruel mistress)).  This year, I knew holiday cards were off the table and I never got to choose birth announcements, but I wanted to do something to commemorate our December baby, and memorial cards felt right for us.  I owe special thanks to to Leslie and Brianna, whose memorial cards for Cullen and George inspired this idea, and from whom I borrowed some of the wording.  Funny how I've been writing about Eliza here for almost a year, and when it came to writing these cards, I felt like I didn't know how to begin (except with tears--plenty of those to go around!).

I wish I had enough cards and postage to send one to everybody who reads this blog, so please consider this the online version.  The cards featured the same photo I'm posted below, and I'm also posting the text we had printed inside.  I mean every word of it, because the comments on and e-mails about this blog have been a real lifeline to me this year.

Several months ago, I posted this poem by Rabindranath Tagore, and this line still comes to mind every single time someone extends a kindness to me, especially when it's someone I wouldn't have met or someone I wouldn't have become close with if it weren't for Eliza:  "They who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart."

I hope you guys know it.  How much it matters, what a difference it makes, how your kindness brings Eliza close to me.  Every comment, every e-mail, every note, every gift.  You've helped me hold my Baby Duck in my heart all year long, and you've listened to every whispered hope and every agonized cry that I've spilled out on this blog.  I cannot thank you enough for keeping Eliza close in my heart and in yours.

In loving memory of

Eliza Taylor Duckworth

December 6, 2010

Please join us in remembering

our sweet Baby Duck

on the anniversary of her birthday.

Though we cannot hold her in our arms, 

we carry her always in our hearts.

Thank you for the love and support we've been given in the past year.  The sorrow we feel for our daughter's loss can only be matched by the love she brought into our lives.

You are invited to join us in celebrating Eliza's brief but beautiful life by lighting a candle, by sharing a moment of silence, or by performing an act of kindness in her honor.

We'd love it if you would share with us how you choose to remember her.