My sister’s baby looks exactly like the child I lost

Dear Delyara, My sister gave birth yesterday. Her daughter is healthy and beautiful. She also looks so much like my stillborn son that I had to leave the hospital room. Same dark hair, same small crease beside the mouth, even the same shape of ear. Genetics explain it. Our children share blood. My sister has done nothing wrong. She called later, crying, because she thought I hated the baby. I do not. I love her already, and that love frightens me because looking at her feels like seeing a life my son might have had if his body had continued. Everyone wants me to hold her tomorrow. They say perhaps it will be healing. I wish people would stop assigning healing jobs to newborns. She is not here to repair me. She is my niece. Still, I cannot look at her without my body remembering the weight of my son when the nurse placed him in my arms. I do not know whether resemblance will soften with age or become sharper. I am ashamed that a healthy baby’s face has become somewhere grief waits for me.