My Isaiah Joseph,

Hello, baby. Guess what, the picture books I made for your siblings came today! I wrapped them in some Santa paper and wrote their names on the gifts and that they were from you. Elijah was pretty let down that it wasn’t a toy. As a mom though, having an upset child after giving them something you were so excited to give them and spent a lot of time to make is the usual. Once he got over the fact that it wasn’t a toy and actually looked in the book he was happy. It made Lucas cry after and Ellie brought it with her to the commissary.

Looking back at pictures of you a few months before everything happened, you look so much older than o viewed you at the time. I don’t know why, but I still viewed you as my little boy. Maybe it’s like that now because you’re gone. I still view your siblings as younger than they are, but realistically they’re all older.

I talked to my therapist today about my getting sad yesterday and thinking the world would forget about you. I told her I wanted to understand why my mind went there and even had that reaction. I wanted to figure it out so I could “fix it”. To my surprise, she told me I need to stop looking to fix things. She told me that I’ve been through a traumatic loss and sometimes random things will just trigger all the feelings. That makes me feel so relieved.

Currently, I’ve been looking into everything that has to deal with your loss and trying to understand my feelings. Maybe if I can figure out why I feel certain ways and what causes it, maybe I can control the grief. There is nothing to control. So yesterday, instead of just letting myself be sad and miss you, I made it worse for myself by telling myself that the world was forgetting about you. I do things like this a lot. I don’t like to just let myself “be”. Next time I just get extremely sad, I’m just going to let myself be sad. The only cause to all of this is losing you and that can’t be fixed.

I also talked to her about the marathon. Training and the last four months didn’t go as planned. So because of that, I’m making all the excuses in the world not to do it. Even though I’m not running/walking for a time or anything, I’m second guessing myself. She told me I need to do it for myself, just for the experience. If you’re going to travel 26.2 miles by foot, it might as well be around a beautiful island surrounded by some of the nicest people I’ve never met. The aloha spirit and a malasada at the finish? Yes, count me in. I would go farther for a fresh malasada. Don’t judge me, you’d do it too.

Yesterday Ellie told me she wasn’t excited for Christmas and I get it. It doesn’t seem like Christmas. I can’t look forward to it the way I used to. I didn’t put up all the Christmas lights I always put around the living room and dining room. I’ve done that since college, so it’s the end of a tradition. When we were going to move I took down all the clips and nails that I had around the rooms to hang the lights. I’m not going to put them all back up. I will get back to it next year in our new house.

We are going to a memorial tree lighting tomorrow for you. Remember that ornament I said needed to be perfect? We didn’t make one. Ellie might be making one tomorrow for you at school. If she makes one, that’s the one we will bring to hang on the tree. If not, I will probably bring the ones I made for you guys when you were born that has your hospital bracelets, hospital outfit, and the measuring tape with your length marked off inside the bulb.

Lucas was crying about missing you and to make him smile, I reminded him of the time you were in the bathtub. You were like two years old. You stood up, peed in your hand, licked it, and said “mmm hot chocolate”. It made him laugh. Him and Elijah love that story, but can never understand why you did it. I told them that you guys do a lot of things, especially when you were little, that makes me question what I’m doing as a mother. I don’t think there’s really an answer to that question though. Why did you do it? Probably because it came to your mind and you wanted to.

It’s time for me to get to bed, sweetie. The next chapter is starting. I love you so much. Goodnight and sweet dreams my precious boy.