Dear Iris: I trust you.

Dear Iris,
I never wanted your birthday to be so close to your brother's.  I never wanted to be pregnant on his birthday at all, in fact.  And I tried to conceive you a month earlier so that it could be avoided entirely.  I even thought about skipping the month you were conceived, but figured if I did that you would just come early anyway and land on the same day as him no matter what I did.  Your c-section is scheduled for 3 days after his birthday, and the doctors refused to move it up.  Just 3 days.  I went home and sobbed.  The closer we get the more unraveled my grace becomes.  I don't want to face this, but last night, in the darkness as everyone else slept, I came to this realization: I think you meant for it to be this way.

You see, I asked him for permission to carry you.  I wrote him a letter, like this, asking him if it was okay if he shared his sacred space on this earth for just a little bit with you, as a living brother would share his toys.  I felt a calm peace after I wrote that letter, and knew it would be okay with him.

And since all of us come from stardust, and are returned to stardust, I truly believe that you and him connected out there in the vastness of creation and hatched a plan for your birth.  And it wasn't going to be the "easy" way for me...it would be the most challenging scenario for me in fact.  But I have to trust the two of you.  I have to trust that you knew what you were doing, as stardust, in sending Iris to us when you did.  Its likely just one more of those things I will not understand until I return to stardust myself.  I just have to see the challenge for what it is, and accept it without explanation.

Your name is Iris because she was a messenger between the gods and mortals.  She sent the messages on rainbows.  And I'm pretty sure Orion and you are sending a message even with the date of your birth, one that I simply don't understand yet.

I didn't want your birthday to be shadowed by his.  I never want you to feel like a replacement for him, because you are not.  I never want you to feel less important than him (or more), because you are not.  I want each of you to be celebrated fully on your special day of birth, and I'm not sure how to do that with you so close together.  But maybe you wanted it this way.  Maybe you won't see it as a shadow of grief, but as a connection you wouldn't otherwise have with Orion.  Maybe it will always feel like a blessing to you.  I hope that it does.

And maybe the whole thing is simply another gift Orion cooked up, with you as the messenger.  A gift to remind me that there is glory in all things, even grief.  That there is only light in contrast to darkness.  That life is so beautiful because we are mortal.  That love has many sides, and the two of you are just two of them, balancing each other in the chaos of my heart.

You will be born at the most perfect time, like all babies.  Even when its scary or traumatic or sad or full of joy and laughter and rainbows.  And I will trust you to know when that is.

With all my heart,
Mommy