Hi Sweetie,
I was just looking over the email that the funeral home sent me. I can’t believe this is where I’m at in my life..calling funeral homes and planning things for my child. Do you want to know something crazy though? None of them ever call us back. You think it’s be a timely thing, but it’s impossible to talk to someone. When we do, they tell us a “planner” will call us back and nobody ever does. It says we need to bring your birth certificate to the meeting. That hurts, bringing my eight year old’s birth certificate to leave with his death certificate.
Remember how Elijah always turns his Alexa up so loud at night when he’s listening to Amazon Storytime? Well he did it again last night. It was around 2am and I just went on to the app to turn the volume down, I wouldn’t dare walk into his room so he could see me turn it down. Nope, just go on the app and turn it down a little by little so it’s not noticeable. While I was in the app, I decided to look into the voice history. Sometimes I’m so thankful for technology I never paid attention to before. I went in and started listening to your voice recordings. I learned that you usually were up between 5:15-5:30am every morning asking Alexa what time it was. Sometimes you were even up in the middle of the night checking the time. I could hear the difference between your voice on mornings you were still tired and when you were clearly wide awake. Your love of Minecraft could be seen too with all the questions you asked about it. I don’t know if you can drain the ocean in Minecraft, but I’m determined to find out for you. That was the last Minecraft question you asked. You still had your little boy voice and it’s comforting to hear you. Your music choices can be seen scattered throughout the history including your latest favorites of Bad Gru Rising from Despicable Me, Will Smith’s version of Friend Like Me, Black Hole Sun, and My Hero by the Foo Fighters. Your love for that last song and the lyrics are why we chose that to play during your Honor Walk down to the OR. Mr. Fred recorded it for us. I don’t know if I will ever watch it, but it’s there.
I have an entire “hidden” album of pictures from your time in the hospital. I asked the one nurse if I should take pictures. I wanted to take pictures because my time to see you was so limited, but I didn’t think I would ever want to go back and relive those pictures. She said to take them and then hide them away. Maybe in six months I will want to see them? Maybe in a year? Maybe never. However, I would have them if I wanted them. I also asked one of the nurses if there was a way I could record your heartbeat. She went and got the Doppler thing, the same thing they used to find your heartbeat when I was pregnant with you. Memories came flashing back to when I went to the sonogram to find out if I was having a boy or girl. Daddy was deployed and didn’t want to wait. So on Valentine’s Day, I went with our neighbor Su to see. I didn’t want to know the gender right away, I wanted to wait and do it via FaceTime with daddy. I had two brown bags, one with pink balloons and streamers in it and one with blue. When I got back home, I asked Su to give me the bag that I would need. I then FaceTimed daddy, when it was the middle of the night for him, and opened the bag up upside down on FaceTime. He was so excited. A little too excited because he woke up the guy next to him. I went off on a tangent there, but I also have your heartbeat in the hidden folder.
It still doesn’t feel real. It feels like I don’t see you now, but it’ll be soon. It has to be. When things were challenging before, my exit plan was to just start over. There was hope. There’s no starting over for this. There is no hope. No matter what I do, you’re gone. I’m wondering if it’ll ever settle and I will think things are our new “normal”. It always feels like something is off. You’re missing. I put you in all the situations and places we are in and imagine what you would be doing. Your siblings have been going to Miss Madison’s and playing on the bouncy castle with the girls. I know I would need to remind you to remember your size and chill out with the little ones if you were here. You just get too excited and go.
I want you home. I want my family of six. A family of five seems so small and quiet. I miss every little thing about you. I hope you’re looking down on us. I love you so much baby.