“Please Bless This Child” Prince’s Prayer For His Son

Prince’s ex wife Mayte writes about her and the late’s singer son, Amiir — Arabic for “prince” in her new memoir, The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince, excerpted exclusively in this week’s PEOPLE, Garcia tells the story of their son, and the pain and heartbreak following his death.

When Garcia, then 22, discovered she was pregnant, she and Prince were overjoyed at the thought of raising a family at their home in Paisley Park. The pregnancy went smoothly until she began bleeding one day and a doctor recommended an amniocentesis to test for genetic abnormalities. The procedure, the doctor warned, carried a risk of miscarriage.

Yet, as the doctor told them: “Sometimes the body is trying to release the fetus for a reason.” But Prince, Garcia writes, was against it: “My husband said, ‘No, we’re not doing that.’”

Once home, the couple prayed for his health.

“Please, bless this child,” said Prince as he prayed on his knees. “We know you won’t allow this child to be harmed.”

On Oct. 16, 1996, Garcia delivered their son via c-section. At first, she writes, she and Prince were elated: “I don’t know how to describe the look on my husband’s face. Pure joy.”

“And then they held the baby up to those harsh lights,” she continues. “The elation on my husband’s face turned to pure terror.”

“Pfeiffer syndrome type 2 is a genetic disorder that causes skeletal and systematic abnormalities,” she writes. “The premature fusing of the bones in the skull, sometimes resulting in ‘cloverleaf skull,’ in which the eyes are outside the sockets. The fusion of bones in the hands and feet causing a webbed or pawlike appearance … I learned all of this later.”

Grab the book on April 4th when it’s available, wherever books are sold.