Dear Emma

Dear Emma,
I want you to know that I love you more than absolutely anything in the entire universe. You are the reason why I get up in the morning and the reason why I stay up all hours of the night. I try not to let you see it ever, but I want you to know that sometimes your diabetes scares the crap out of me. I worry that I will walk in your room in the morning to wake you up for school and you will have left me. I worry that whenever I guess wrong with your carbs or insulin dosages and wind up with a high blood sugar, that I am doing permanent damage to your little body. I worry that what I am doing now to take care of you will cause you complications when you are older. I worry that I won't be strong enough to let you go when the time comes for you to live your own life and be a grown up and manage your own diabetes. I worry that I am forgetting to teach you some important skills or knowledge about your diabetes. I worry that I am teaching you too much about it. I worry that one day when you are a teenager, you will be treated poorly or differently because no matter how much I try to deny it...you are different. You are the only one of your friends with diabetes. I worry that you will get your heart broken by a friend or a boy who just can't handle it and isn't good enough for you. I worry about you. When I had to tell you that you were diabetic...I thought I wouldn't be able to get the words out...they were stuck in my throat choking me...my heart and my soul were tearing in two as the words fell out of my mouth.
I hope you know that I am sorry this happened. I wish it was me instead of you. I wish I could give you my pancreas and take your broken one. I am sorry there is not a cure yet. I hope you know that I will do whatever is humanly possible to help researchers find a cure. I will do this and stand up and fight for you with everything I have until my last breath on this earth. I hope you know that. You are my world and I honestly don't know what I did to deserve you. I never knew what it meant to love someone until you came along. You told me last night at bedtime that you "really like me". I hope you know that meant SO MUCH to me. I hope you know that you will always have me there to help you. I will take care of you, comfort you, talk with you, laugh with you, have fun with you, support you and your dreams, and simply BE there for you even when we are both old gray haired ladies. Diabetes has been in our lives for going on 3 years now and I hope it will be gone soon. But even if it is around for another 30 years, I want you to know that we will be fine...we may have our struggles and falls, but we will make it through the other side that much stronger. I will carry you through to the other side. We will be ok...that much I can promise you. Thank you for making me want to be a better person. Thank you for showing me what is really truly important in life. Thank you for being my hero. Thank you for being YOU. I love you and always will!
Love,
Mommy