Hi my baby,

Today sucked. It was Father’s Day. That meant if you were still here with us you would have woken up way too early, jumped on dad, and given him a big kiss first thing in the morning. Lucas ran in as soon as he woke up, so maybe he can kind of fill in that void a little bit. Daddy didn’t want to do anything and spent a lot of time listening to Black Hole Sun acoustic version on repeat. Maybe it’s because it’s an acoustic version, but it definitely sounds sadder than the original. There were no plans.

I’m trying to hold on to any little piece of you that I can. Remember that pillow case from the hospital? It accidentally got washed, I’m trying not to have a complete breakdown over that. I at least have your shirt that they changed you into the last two days. I was walking around with that draped around my neck today instead. I’m terrified of losing you more than I already have. To be honest, I don’t know how I can lose any more of you. I’m clinging on to the little things I have. Today I put on the bracelet your teacher gave your class the last week of school. You never even wore it, but it was yours. So now, it’ll be on my wrist at all times. I also bought a necklace that I can put your ashes in. I got your name engraved on it. I’m hoping once I have that I will feel a little closer to you. I feel so extremely far away from you and so incredibly far from ever grieving the loss of you. How does someone even recover from this? I talked to my therapist today and I couldn’t even explain it. She asked if I was afraid of forgetting you. It’s not that I’m afraid of forgetting you, that would obviously never happen. I’m just terrified of having nothing of you here. We are already at that point, but it just still doesn’t make sense in my head.

I cleaned your room today. It was still a mess from when you were last in it, but it was stressing me out. With legos all over the floor I would get worried walking through your room. I would be worried that I would accidentally step on one of your creations and break it. Your “life cycle of a butterfly” had been on the ground and at some point the week we were in the hospital with you, it got destroyed. I’m pretty sure it was the dogs, but I don’t want to take chances with anything else you built. Your alligator car, demolition derby creation, the Santa car, and the guy that throws up legos are all still intact. Of course your Super Mario Mystery Cube and the Pyramid of Giza are still together, but your creations are my favorite. I had to hyper focus on the cleaning in order to not cry as much. You were just sitting in that same spot a little over two weeks ago and building. Your room is my place of peace, I wanted to be able to enjoy it without worrying. Because I am the person that I am, I’m already wondering what happens when we move out of this house. We move out, your room, the memories in this house, they’re all inaccessible. I can’t just walk past your room to tell you I love you. I can’t just go in there and picture you reading in your bed to delay bedtime or building legos with your siblings. What do I do when there’s no longer an “Isaiah’s room”?! I cannot even fathom that right now. It’s too much.

I cried to the couple that brought us dinner tonight. I answered the door and they asked how I was doing with that look on their face of “I know you’re horrible, but I feel like I need to ask”. I tried to talk around certain subjects as to not completely open the flood gates. I’d talk about you and then before I started to completely lose it, I would talk about the dogs or the current condition of our house. I want to talk about you all the time to everyone. Everyone needs to know Isaiah Joseph Watson. I have told myself a few times that I just need to get all the crying out and then I will feel like I’m able to breathe again. That time will never come though. This doesn’t end. You don’t come back. I’ve always pushed through the hard times thinking “I just need to get to this certain point and I will be okay”. This situation doesn’t have a certain point though. At no point will the pain of losing you ever end as long as I’m here and you’re there.

I want you to visit in my dreams. If not me, then someone in this family. I just want to know that you were around and you’re okay. I swear, I really haven’t had a dream since this whole thing happened. I don’t even think I’ve slept much. I want to listen to the video I took of your heartbeat, but I can’t bring myself to listen to it. There’s days I’ve watched videos of you on my phone or looked at so many pictures of you and then there’s days where there’s no way I could handle anything like that. I just want to see you. I just want to tell you I love you. I told you “I love you” about a hundred times today..in your bedroom, in my bedroom, in the bathroom, outside..I hope you heard me.