Each Mom’s Day, Pei Xia Chen will get a gift from her late NYPD detective husband Wenjian Liu: their daughter Angelina.
The bubbling eight-year-old was born through synthetic insemination about two and a half years after her father was murdered – utilizing sperm harvested on his deathbed.
“She’s actually my miracle child,” Chen, 44, advised The Put up.
“What makes it much more particular is how a lot she jogs my memory of her father, Wenjian. Each time I take a look at her, I see part of him nonetheless residing on by way of her,” the widow mentioned.
Liu, 32, and his accomplice Detective Rafael Ramos, 40, had been murdered whereas on patrol on Dec. 20, 2014 by cop-hating profession legal Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, who gunned down the pair as they sat in a marked squad automobile in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Brinsley — who was wished in Baltimore for capturing his ex-girlfriend within the abdomen earlier that day — then fatally shot himself within the head.
Liu and Chen, who met by way of mutual pals, had solely been married for 3 months earlier than he was killed.
For so long as they’d been collectively – seven years – he at all times wished kids.
“Even earlier than we had been married, Wenjian at all times wished to be a father,” she mentioned. “I wished to verify his dream got here true.
“After I realized that my husband couldn’t be saved, my very first thought was that I couldn’t enable his dream to die with him.”
She was already acquainted with sperm retrieval and IVF procedures, Chen mentioned, and instantly requested if Liu’s sperm could possibly be preserved.
That night time, she dreamt of Liu, displaying her their new child child, she recalled.
“I had a vivid dream. Wenjian was dressed utterly in white and gently handed me a small bundle wrapped in a white blanket,” Chen mentioned.
“He checked out me and mentioned, ‘That is our daughter.’”
Dr. Peter Schlegel eliminated some of Liu’s sperm on the Workplace of Chief Medical Examiner the next morning. After her dream, Chen was much more assured she made the best choice.
Angelina – who shares her father’s smile and heat character – is who retains Chen robust, particularly throughout the holidays when she thinks of her husband probably the most.
“Each vacation there’s disappointment,” she mentioned whereas choking up at her Dyker Heights house. “Wenjian must be right here with us.
“However the ache is softened as a result of I’ve Angelina,” she continued, calling her daughter “my biggest treasure and the best present God has given me.”
The Catholic faculty third grader loves swimming, singing and taking part in the piano and clarinet. She needs to be a veterinarian when she grows up — Chen is aware of Liu can be happy with the charismatic little lady.
Whereas Angelina was robbed of ever attending to know her father, Chen makes certain to maintain his reminiscence alive and provides her daughter the life she deserves.
“Angelina will at all times be my miracle child, my residing connection to Wenjian,” mentioned Chen, a keep at house mother. “My focus is on elevating her and honoring my husband’s reminiscence and giving Angelina the happiest and most loving life doable.
“I’m merely grateful daily for the blessing of getting Angelina in my life.”
