My baby boy,

The past week and a half has been a roller coaster of emotions. I keep trying to find something to “blame” it on, completely ignoring that it’s probably the normal for this traumatic situation. I had a lot of anger directed towards daddy for the past and blamed that, then I got super emotional and blamed that on my hormones during my period, now my anxiety is through the roof and I’m blaming that on having more energy because I’m eating better and exercising. Does it sound crazy? Because it feels crazy. I keep looking for the “why” and something to blame so I can fix it and feel better. Nothing will ever fix this though, so I need to stop looking. I don’t know how to just sit in this feeling and be in it. I acknowledge it’s there, but I still need reasons. You want to know the only answer I need? I freaking lost my eight year old suddenly and unexpectedly..without a warning. Does one need any other reason to feel absolutely horrible? My therapist asked me the other day if I thought you would want me feeling this way. Of course you wouldn’t. You cared about everyone. Whenever I was sad, you tried to cheer me up. You fixed my bowl, taped my pot together, drew me a picture of Uncle Jim’s stained glass that broke, and brought me a Kleenex and told me you loved me. You wouldn’t want this at all and I know that, but I have all this love for you and it has nowhere to go. I have all the love that’s meant for you to receive and I can’t give it to you so those emotions just sit in me and take over.

I talked to a squishmallow today. Yep. I snuggle with your big squishmallow every night so it’s in my bed. When I came back from my run and was going to shower, the squishmallow fell off the pillow on my bed. I literally stood there talking to it. I was saying, “Isaiah, if that’s you baby, make it move again”. I said it like five times while giving one hundred percent of my attention to staring at your squishmallow. It didn’t move. While I was staring at it, I convinced myself that it was going to move again. Just like in the hospital when I was holding your hand and asking you to squeeze mine if you heard me. In the same way, I didn’t get what I had hoped.

I had to call Tricare this morning because we got our first hospital bill yesterday and it was $193,500. I needed to see if something happened because that’s just insane. When I talked to the woman on the phone, I had to tell her a quick synopsis of the event so she knew we lost you. After telling me what I needed to do and helping me for five minutes, we were about to end our call. Suddenly she asked me “and how are you?” It took me by complete surprise. I started crying to this woman on the phone and said “you asked how I was? I’m terrible, but thank you so much for asking”. She said she would keep our family in our prayers. This woman I never met, didn’t even know her name, she cared enough and made a connection to me. It’s odd, I can manage to hold myself together throughout the day when talking to various people. Every once in a while I will shed a few tears, but that’s usually where it ends. I save the complete breakdowns for times by myself and therapy. This woman though, I just lost it. I see little glimpses of your kindness and thoughtfulness every day. This was one of those amazing times where it really had an impact.

I’m so glad I took this picture of you and Elijah playing Rudy. I’m going to have to print it out and frame it for Elijah. I hope you know the impact you had on your siblings. You’ve been referred to as the strongest and the smartest kid in our family. As much as you and Ellie would argue, she’s lost without you. She quickly realized that as “annoying” as she said you were, you were her best friend. She’s so thankful you guys had the Lego challenge that morning and made the Minecraft world. She does wish she would have given you a hug that morning. That’s a regret she has. When I signed Elijah up for Pre-K this morning we saw one of their promotional fliers and in it was a picture of Lucas and his class from two years ago. You would have loved it. Sitting on the ground next to Lucas was “cat”. He managed to make the picture and was famous. After we saw it, Lucas was telling me how he missed the game you guys would play in the bathtub with cat and captain pickles. From what he told me, it seems like one of them sat in a bowl of water while the other one was thrown at them until they fell in? Sound familiar? Then once one would knock it down, it would switch. He said he can’t play it anymore because he thinks of you and it makes him sad. I told him that’s fine, maybe he will be able to play it a few months from now and think of you, but the fun you guys had playing that.

Please know that you will always be a member of this family. Your stocking will go up every Christmas, I’m always going to talk to you as if you’re here, and we will continue to remember and celebrate you. We love and miss you so much my baby. Please watch over us, this whole situation really tests how much a person can handle. I love you more than anything sweetie, goodnight and sweet dreams.