Dear Rachel and Heidi,

I will not pretend that I know what you are going through. Even though I possess the over abiding love for my two sons, and a distant but constant fear that something bad could ever happen to them, I have never experienced the pain I can only imagine you feel today.

You are both such magnificent women, and you have experienced what is arguably life’s most ultimate loss. I wish I could say that my note here was one to cheer you, or even give you comfort. Sadly, it is not.

This is a note that validates your pain, anguish, horror and sorrow. There are those in this world who see you as bystanders, mere caretakers who were there for a few months and then cut loose. I know the truth. You are mothers who have lost a great and significant love. You lost Gabriel, in a deeper, more profound way than anyone else.

You were the parents who held the hope and promise for a little boy, and he was blessed by your wonderful glow. Life is precious and fragile, and the disastrous events that happened were made possible by just a few childish decisions by two people who had no business being parents at all. Again, we, the world, need to see that procreating a human child and being his parent are not one and the same thing.

I desperately wish I could make this better for you. I want that I could have that kind of power, because this is exactly a situation in which I would use it. But, I don’t and I can’t. You are in my thoughts and prayer. I put out the hope that the love you have within your family can carry you through this loss, and eventually deliver your next child, who will be so fortunate and blessed to have you.

Your little Gabriel was born deaf in one ear. You fitted him for a hearing aide. There was a fear he might become entirely deaf. You both started to learn sign language.

In the end, there was no one in your family that was hard of hearing. It was the world. The world did not recognize that a love and dedication strong enough to put your child before your own needs earned you the right to motherhood. This is your tragedy and loss. You gave our world clarity. You have defined true parenting more clearly than it has been understood before.

I fill my heart with love and solidarity. You are not “former,” you are not “adoptive.” You are real moms in every way that counts.

In a few weeks, it will be Mothers Day. On that day, I will buy two roses to honor you. I will look on them and think of you, as you are:

Gabriel’s moms, now and forever.