Isaiah,

I feel like my head just gets too filled with thoughts of you sometimes and the only way to get them out is to tell you in these messages. For whatever reason, I feel like if I put them out in the world then I have a better chance of you seeing them.

It feels like you’ve been gone forever. In reality, it’s been exactly three weeks since I heard your voice and two weeks since I got to hold you or kiss you. It’s like time has gone so incredibly fast and you’ve been gone for a longer time. Technically the longest I’ve ever gone with seeing you was that four days daddy took you to Philly before we moved here. Even then, I talked to you several times a day on the phone.

I’m looking through the pictures I’ve printed off for your board I’m making for tomorrow. Looking back through all my pictures helped me realize how much you did get to do in your short life. It brought back memories of some of the times you wouldn’t think at the time were memorable, but live in my head still. You loved playing in the leaves when you were younger. In Tennessee you would play in them at the parks and in Missouri you would always jump and roll in the ones on the hill by the community center. You’ve always loved the water. The few times we stayed in hotels on the drives back to Pennsylvania you were obsessed with going in the pool. We went down to the riven and Happy Hollow all the time in Missouri. Remember the time you nearly lost your Lightening McQueen croc and I had to chase it down the river? What about the game you guys would play where you climbed up the little sand dune, ran down, fell in the sand, then went into the water. You guys did that over and over again for like thirty minutes at a time. You still liked bringing stuffed animals everywhere. You were so excited this year when Mrs. Holmes told the class you could bring a stuffed animal to put on your desk for the day. Aunt Sarah had gotten you this little Ty dog from when you went into the hospital to get an endoscopy when you were around a year and a half old. You loved that dog so much and then Lucas started to love it too, which caused arguments and we had to buy another dog. I have pictures of you and that dog from Missouri when you brought it to the aquarium with us when you were six. I have pictures of you when I shaved your head and essentially scarred you from getting haircuts the rest of your life. Covid closed everything down and you had needed a hair cut. YouTube and daddy told me I had the ability to cut it and fade it myself. That was a complete lie. I butchered your hair so bad that I just had to shave it all down. You looked absolutely adorable and it quickly grew back, but you hated when I “made you bald” and never wanted your hair shorter again. I have pictures of you wearing the same shirts spanning years. You started wearing them when you were younger and they were huge on you. However, you loved them and didn’t care. You had your Steelers jersey that I swear was so close to dress length when you started wearing it back in Missouri. You were still wearing it here in Hawaii and it was getting too small for you. That Dragon Ball Z shirt that was daddy’s from Abuela, it was too small for daddy so you claimed it as yours. We told you it was huge on you, but you didn’t care. It fit you well on your last day of school this year. The pictures are extremely painful, but I got to look back on all the experiences and fun you had in your short life. You loved the simple things like hiking, building with legos at the library “block parties”, drawing with Art for Kids Hub, and finding sea glass with me on the beach.

They turned out power off tonight. It was a planned power outage so they can fix something, but we have no power from 8pm to 6am. Even that happening makes me think of you. We would have either brought the nugget up for you to sleep in the boys’ room with them or you would have slept with Ellie. Nobody wants to sleep alone when the house is completely dark and silent. You also would hope that they wouldn’t turn it back on at all tomorrow because we would be forced to go get food somewhere because we couldn’t cook anything. I would explain again that it’s a planned power outage so it’ll be back on, but you will still think “just maybe”.

It doesn’t seem like you’re gone off this earth. Maybe you’re just visiting somewhere for some time and you’ll be back soon. I was talking to you in your room today, did you hear me? I’m sorry I cry a lot. I hope you don’t feel bad that I’m upset, because you are the kind of kid that would take on that pain and try and fix everything. This can’t be fixed. I just cry because of how much I love and miss you. It’s something I’m going to have to learn to live with, but I will continue to talk to you every single day for the rest of my life. I will do certain things and go certain places because it’s something you loved. I will do my best to honor you and your life for the rest of my time here on Earth.

Tomorrow is going to be very difficult, but I’m looking forward to hearing all the amazing stories and memories that people share about you.

I love you. I worry I can’t tell you that enough now. I want to just scream it as loud as I can hoping you’ll hear it. Please come by if you can tomorrow. In all honesty, just come by all the time. I can’t wait till we have you back home. I love you so much, sweetie. Goodnight.