My Isaiah Joseph,

Hi sweetie. Last night was rough. Lucas just lost his mind crying about missing you. Ellie though, her brain forgot for a second that you were gone. She came back downstairs and saw a pile of pillows under a blanket. When she saw it, she thought it was you and asked if you wanted to play Minecraft. Last night was the first night she has actually played since everything happened. She went into the world you and her created the morning before we left for the beach. She went to your bedroom in the world and created a grave for you. It’s heart wrenching, but I think it was therapeutic for her. She showed me that entire world today, the one called The Good Stuff and the Village Realm. I’m actually pretty impressed. Although I don’t understand Minecraft, it was good craftsmanship. I really appreciated the garden that you created in your house. I noticed it right away and Ellie said you created it. I also saw what was going to be your Pirate Room. I’m guessing that long walkway thing was the plank? I liked how if you went off the plank you still landed in the house. I wish you could have finished it. It would have been interesting n to see the little details you added to it.

I took the boys to the library today. We had to return the Plants vs. Zombies game. Ellie was at Madalynn’s house. We had already done this month’s I Spy so the boys just wanted all the pigeon books. They had a new one about the pigeon wanting to ride a roller coaster. You would have enjoyed the ending, the roller coaster barely did anything and was boring. I tried to search for other books for your siblings while I was there about loss and grief, but I had no luck looking myself. I asked the one librarian for help finding a book for kids who lost a sibling. It was the one lady with the glasses who is always there. After she found the book she looked at me and said, “wait, who’s this for, them?” and pointed to the boys. I immediately started crying and told her how we lost you last month. She gave me a huge hug in the middle of the library. I cried. She cried. Lucas asked why she was hugging me. She knew exactly who you were. I mean, we were at the library at least one to two times every week. I have oddly wondered if people like that would notice the absence of you. Even some of the people at the commissary, like the lady we knew who worked at the commissary at Fort Leonard Wood while we were there and now she’s working here. The same people see all of us together all the time. It was always me and the whole crew.

I talked to a new trauma therapist today. Maybe the third times a charm? My lady I have always talked to insisted I needed to find a new one. We will see how it goes. My new one asked about flashbacks. The flashbacks I have are of watching your stomach while they were doing CPR and the water coming out of your eyes and mouth during CPR. I didn’t even like typing that. It’s disturbing. She did tell me that when the flashbacks start, I need to disrupt them by doing something, by doing anything. That way it won’t make a permanent trigger and pathway in my brain. It makes sense, but I don’t know how easy that would be to do. Maybe I should just have a dance party to a catchy song I just can’t help but get into. Not one of your songs, that’ll just make me more sad. Maybe I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston? Maybe even one of the songs from the Disney Descendants movies? Honestly, some of those songs are so catchy. What’s My Name, the song Uma sings, I just can’t help it. Maybe that’s what I should try and do with Ellie when she starts to spiral.

I miss you terribly. Thank you for being such an amazing son to me and daddy and an amazing brother to your siblings. Even if nobody says anything about you, your loss is felt every second of every day by everyone in this house. One more thing, I have to take the boys with me to Ellie’s gymnastics class tomorrow. She hasn’t been there since the week before everything happened. I know how much you loved sitting at Ellie’s gymnastics (don’t worry, you know I’m being sarcastic). I love you so much my baby. Goodnight and sweet dreams.