She Waited 10 Years to Leave Us… On the Day Our Baby Died

She died three months ago.

And I still wake up expecting to see her next to me. Her side of the bed feels like a tomb—empty, cold, untouchable. I lie awake at night, staring into the darkness, trying to understand how we ended up here. How she ended up… there.

We were both 25. Married. Two kids. A life we built together from practically nothing.

But now she’s gone. By choice.

I met her when we were 11. Sixth grade. She had braces and this annoying laugh I grew to love. We were kids who became adults together—first kisses, first heartbreaks, first everything. By 15, she was pregnant. And we were so excited. Stupidly so.

It was a girl. We named her Alice after a character in a movie we were obsessed with. We daydreamed about baby clothes, cribs, and lullabies. It felt like a dream we’d grown too fast into.

But at six months, she lost Alice.

I still remember holding her in that sterile hospital room as she screamed and begged to die. She was never the same after that. She wanted to go with Alice.

We got the baby cremated. She used to talk to the ashes like Alice was still alive—every night, whispering secrets and songs into a tiny urn. I was terrified, but I loved her. So I stayed. I thought I could save her.

She was hospitalized for months. Her parents were monsters—cold, cruel, blaming her for the miscarriage. When she got out, she refused to go home. So I asked my dad if she could stay. We were 16, living in the same house, trying to pretend we were normal.

But she never let go of Alice. Not really.

At 17, she got pregnant again. Another girl. And this time, she swore it was Alice coming back to her.

We named her after another character from that same movie—trying to recreate the fantasy. But something shifted. She told me quietly, “This isn’t Alice. I thought she was… but she’s not.”

I watched her smile fade the day our daughter was born.

She never bonded with her. Not truly. I begged her to go to therapy, but she shut me down every time. “You don’t understand,” she said. And maybe I didn’t.

At 18, we moved into our own place. I worked full-time. She stayed home. She’d call me crying in the middle of the day, saying she wished it was just us and not the baby. That Alice should’ve been the one here.

She got a job for a while, hated it, quit. Her world kept getting smaller. Mine kept getting heavier. But I held on.

At 19, I proposed. She was overjoyed. But even then, she whispered to me in bed one night, “I wish we could be a family of three—me, you, and Alice.” I laughed, but her face didn’t change.

She meant it.

At 21, she got pregnant again. She was hopeful, almost glowing. She was convinced this one was Alice coming back for real this time.

Then we found out it was a boy.

I found her in the bathroom with a bottle of pills. She survived. Barely. Back to the hospital. Two weeks this time. She told me the only thing keeping her alive was the possibility that maybe Alice had come back as a boy. It was a desperate lie she told herself to keep breathing.

We got married right before the baby came. Bought a house. Tried to feel like adults. But after he was born, she looked at me and said flatly:
“I don’t love him. I don’t even like him.”

From then on, everything was just surviving. She cried all the time. Said awful things to our kids—things no child should ever hear. She told me she felt like her soul never moved on after Alice. That she wasn’t built to mother anyone except her.

She died on the ten-year anniversary of Alice’s death.

She left a note.

It said:
“No one on this earth will ever matter to me like Alice does. I need to be with her. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

But how do I forgive that?

How do I explain to my 7-year-old daughter that her mom didn’t love her? That she chose death over being their mother? When she looked up at me after the funeral and said, “It’s okay, Daddy. I know she didn’t love me anyway,” something inside me broke forever.

She was right. And I hate that.

Now I raise them alone. I make their lunches, brush their hair, read them bedtime stories. I do both jobs. Because she left me to be both mom and dad while she went to chase a dead dream.

But here’s the most f*cked up part…

I still love her.

I HATE her. But I love her.

From 11 years old to now, she was my whole world. And now all I have left is two little people who look like her—but will grow up knowing that they were never enough for their mom to stay.

And I don’t know how to make peace with that.

Maybe I never will.

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