Hi baby boy,

Hi baby boy,

Today is the official six month mark when this entire nightmare began. Six flipping months. It feels like so much longer. The physical pain has subsided a little bit. It’s not a constant punch to the stomach/something caught in my throat feeling. Now I’m just tired all the time. I’m physically tired from the grief and your siblings not sleeping. I’m mentally exhausted still trying to figure out how this happened, what my next move is, and what needs to be done for your siblings. Emotionally, I’m still a wreck. Sometimes my mind goes to you and all I can do is smile. Other times I’m minding my own business and I see you being pulled out of the ocean. I’m still at the “how is this my life?”. My goals have become just survive day by day.

You were in my dream last night, but I can’t remember most of it. I’m pretty sure Lucas woke me up asking where Elijah was. By the way, two nights ago Elijah ended up in my bed because he just missed you. I remember sitting behind you in my dream and rubbing your back. I didn’t see your face and you couldn’t talk. It was like I knew you were gone, but I was perfectly happy with still having you in that capacity where I could just touch you. I think it went back to the part in Moana 2 and I was processing having you around, but in a different way.

We cleaned up some of the beach today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much broken plastic on the beach. Maybe I never paid as much attention? I don’t know, but we talked about how you wanted to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch so we were doing something small to help you out. I’m not a full believer in “signs”. I feel like you could see a “sign” anywhere if you wanted to. However, I wonder if there was one today at the beach. I was in front of your siblings walking to pick up garbage and all of a sudden came across this “I” in the sand. It was close enough that the waves were breaking in that area. So this means that these three things got pushed in by a wave to make that “I”. I’d like to think that was our sign from you.

After the ocean cleaning, we went over to Matsumotos for some shave ice. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time Lucas ever got three flavors. When we first moved here he tried two flavors at once, but then he went to one single flavor and would never add another one. Completely useless information, but I know if you were here that you would have noticed that too. Lucas probably ate half of it because the other half went to the rooster, hen, and her baby chicks. He just kept tossing some to them.

We’ve got a full week coming up. Tomorrow is the Christmas tree lighting on post, Wednesday is the memorial tree lighting at Kapi’olani, Thursday we have Kids Hurt Too Hawaii, and then we have the Christmas Party for Let Grace in on Saturday. Hopefully you can make it to one of those.

I love you so much, my sweet boy. I would give anything to wrap my arms around you one more time. Goodnight and sweet dreams.