Isaiah baby,

I’ve been numb and emotionless all day. I just laid down to write to you and the tears just started. I’m not understanding the way this grief is working. Today I felt nothing. At some points, it felt like you never even existed. It’s a real mind game. Once that happens, I’m questioning why the heck I’m even thinking like that. There’s nothing there. I will start down the path in my mind of you being gone, but my mind won’t let me complete the thoughts. It just disappears and my mind is blank. The grief from losing you is stronger and more powerful than I ever even knew was possible. I just want to be holding your hand right now. I want to be telling you that you need to brush your teeth as you complain about it. I want you to come in when I’m putting your brothers to sleep and give me your giant kisses you always did.

I swear I heard you call my name in my dream last night. I never saw you or heard anything else. At one point I even questioned in my dream whether or not I had actually heard you. I don’t know what that was about, but I wish I would have known it was you and had seen you. Before I started my run today, I stopped to stretch. I looked up and there was a big rainbow in the sky even though there was no rain in sight. I took a picture and sent it to daddy saying I hoped it was a sign from you.

There’s random things I’m thankful I just let you guys do. For whatever reason, you guys loved your “secret passage” behind the bread at Sam’s Club. I went Lucas tonight and could just hear you asking if you could go back there. When you were younger and we lived in Missouri, for whatever reason all the parents at the park that day wouldn’t let their kids go in the grass. Ticks? I don’t know. I felt the parents judging me when I was letting you and Ellie roll down the hill in the grass. Even more judgement when you got kicked in the face by Ellie while you were rolling and your nose started bleeding. I wish I would have let you make pancakes more. You just refused to follow a recipe and mixed madness together. Sometimes it was edible. A lot of times it wasn’t. You’d get so frustrated that you couldn’t just magically mix any amount of ingredients together and make some delicious meal. Remember when we all tried to make the spaghetti and meatball cake from the cookbook we got at the library? It looked like ours was from Nailed It. However, it was delicious.

Lucas got out of the bath today and I had to ask him as always if he used soap. He said yes and I started asking about every single body part. Once I got sufficient information that he cleaned his entire body he was like “I even cleaned my leg pits!”. I had no idea what he was talking about, but apparently that’s what you called the area behind your knees. I must say, I get it and I agree.

I see you in random places. I saw you today at Sam’s Club as I was watching a mom with her three boys. Two of them were older than you, but not by much. I just couldn’t help but to think how tall you were going to be. How you’d compare just standing next to them. I see you in the morning sitting on the couch when I come downstairs. I even thought of you yesterday at the commissary. I was buying milk and checking the dates. All of them said July 19th. I looked through every rack to see if there was one for July 20th since it’s your birthday. It seems crazy that I was frantically looking through milk cartons because I wanted to find one with your birthday. That wouldn’t get me any closer to you. I also bought you some nice new flowers for the table by your urn. Never thought I would have to do that. However, I feel like you deserve all the beauty.

You were and still are an amazing son. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from this. I’m sorry I wasn’t holding you when you went down. I’m sorry for so much. I swear, I tried my best as a mom. Sometimes I annoyed you, sometimes I embarrassed you, sometimes I made you mad, sometimes you just looked at me with a face because you thought I was being weird. However, I stand behind my love of horrible accents and the appreciation for the song Banana Phone. I wish I could just tell you sorry, give you a kiss, and get one of your huge hugs. I wish I could tell you that you meant the world to me. I wish I could tell you how proud I am of everything that you are. I wish I could take back everything that has happened. I can’t though. I can’t do a thing except sit here and figure out how to live out the rest of my life without you here. I love you, buddy.

“Hi Isaiah. Love you. I love you more than playing games and I also completed a world in plants vs zombies. Some people helped me. It was a sunflower, and an ice sunflower, and a pea shooter, and I was berry shooter. Then on wave five there were two disco zombies and one tombstone. And some real zombies. And on wave ten, uh there was a yeti zombie and the light pole zombie. And what else? Hmmmm…oh! I think there was just the real zombies again. Isaiah, we love you. Bye”. From Elijah, who just told me he hopes he has a dream about you.