How many stamps do I need to send a letter heaven? I stand gripping my freshly cleaned varsity coat as we step out of the car, and the new snow crunches under my feet. I stand looking at the blinding lights of the building and think why am I here it is five in the morning and  should be asleep under 20 pounds of warm blankets. The snow picks back up; the wind makes it feel as nails are attacking my skin, we hurry to the safety of the sheltered patio. We head inside the double sliding automatic doors respond instantaneously to our movement and welcome us inside with a warm gust of air from the heater which instantly melts the snow still lingering on our clothes. I force a gentle smile on my face as a joyful older woman walks outside , I can’t stand to look any more so I watch my still wet shoes slide over the wooden floor. We pass many other people but I couldn’t bare to look any higher than their shoes. Finally we reach our destination. Room 218. I stand motionless for a few moments she is in there and I can’t cry in front of her. I have to be strong. I walk in slowly and fight the fierce wave of emotions as I see her.

                              A beauty lies motionless, the faint beeping of monitors is the only indication that she is alive, although I know part of her isn’t. She is only 5’1” so she doesn’t take up much space on the hard white bed. Her once dazzling long thin blond hair, has been put up into a messy bun and appears almost orange from the ancient lights. And the most breathtaking light blue eyes are shut in pain, a pain that no one should ever feel. This a magnificent 21 year old has been aged by many years in one night because of such agony. She is not just any woman, she is my sister and I would be lying in her place if God would had allowed it.

                         As the day trudges on miserable second by second, and people come and go I stay seated on a old 80’s plastic green style couch. Most of the day is spent in silence. I watch outside the window as the snow continues to its one sole destination the earth. How I wish to be a flake of snow and know of nothing other than the feeling of free falling to the Earth. My body begins to go numb from the coldness seeping in through the old single pane windows. As I pull my legs up in a feeble attempt to warm myself the plastic on the couch creaks under me stirring the woman attached to the beeping monitors. In fear of waking her I rush quickly out of the pitch-dark room and I am temporarily blinded by the brightly lit hall way. The rush of warmth from the light and heater across the room gives me feeling back into my limbs. Sitting in the hall with my back to the wall I watch as nurses go in and out of the room I guard I know that it is time. The doctor arrives and it is almost time to meet him, my nephew.

                           I sit in agony waiting minute by minute. I hear the sound of pure heart ache, the sound comes from the next room over. To most people the sound means nothing, it is the sound of the first cry of a newborn. My heart shatters as I feel every emotion at once, the tears come uncontrollably as I shake and my eyesight goes black for minutes. These few moments I black out I am pulled to a memory of a Sunday. Siting after a recreational volleyball game with some family members and my sister. I put my hand on her abdomen to see if I can feel little Levi move. But I was too impatient and tell her that I can just feel him move after he is born. I wake up to this memory as my mother urges me inside the room to meet my nephew. The tears come again knowing that I will not be able to feel him move. And seeing my nephew wrapped up in a little blanket and able to fit in one of my hands, I am able to say that I saw and held the most beautiful angel that day.

                    If you pay close enough attention you can see me carrying him, everyday he is with me. His physical weight is not amounted to much no more than a few ounces, the mental weight is nearly unbearable. I wear my pain on an old leather cord tied in a knot and a brass frame holds his right footprint, a foot that never touched the Earth.This is a pain no one should ever feel, for when that newborn cried it was not the sound of my nephew but of someone else baby, and my nephew would never cry. For my nephew was born during a silent, dark, snowstorm. The day he was born, my sister gave birth to an angel. In the maternity ward of a hospital, one of the happiest places on Earth, pain can still be found in the darkness of tears.