Hi baby,

I miss you. I thought you should know that. Also, I think it’s important to reinforce that Ellie’s heart is going to be checked. She has an appointment with genetics next week and they called me today to get the results from your test. Also, she will be going to the cardiologist on Wednesday. They called me today to confirm the appointments and I asked if they knew what that appointment would consist of. Each of your siblings will be getting an EKG and echo done on Wednesday. What’s being done currently is being done, Wednesday will give us a lot more information on the next steps.

It’s weird how you can remember such detail from random days when something happens. I remember hearing the secretary announce “not guilty” over the intercom when I was in first grade. I don’t know why I banked that into my memory considering it was about the OJ Simpson trial and as far as I know, I had no idea about any of that. Then on September 11th, I found out about the twin towers while in art class. I was kind of embarrassed because I didn’t even know what the World Trade Center was at the time. I was a sophomore and had never left the comforts of Pittsburgh, I was too busy working at the pretzel place and running I guess. I was wearing a white short sleeved shirt that had the Eiffel Tower on it and “Paris” written in glitter. Don’t ask, the early 2000s were a weird time. After art I went to math with Mr. Siverts. He was really big on getting things done with math so he continued on as if nothing was going on. I then went to lunch, but was worried about Pap. I heard a plane crashed in Somerset and I thought he was delivering mail there that day. During the last period of the day I had history? It was Mr. Pokrajac and he turned the lights off, showed us footage from the news, and kind of just let everyone process everything.

Today while I was driving, I was going back through everything the day we lost you. I remember random things that I don’t understand why. I texted daddy that morning to tell him where we were going. I don’t know what made me do that, but I felt like I needed to tell him the beach we were going to. I remember noticing little things and making a mental note of them. You announced how you were going to be the only one using the boogie board before we left the house. You barely touched it when we got to the beach. You ran into the ocean with it for a minute, then kind of just let everyone else have it. While you were getting CPR, you randomly gasped for air twice. I can still hear it exactly as it sounded. The gasping was what I kept hearing today I was driving. I don’t know why, it just kept replaying in my head with the picture in my head burned into my brain from that day.

I always thought there was a weird reason we got stationed in Hawaii. It wasn’t up on the list to get picked, daddy didn’t even talk to anyone from the units here, it came out of nowhere. I have learned a lot about myself since we’ve been here, more than I ever could have imagined. I used to think the universe put me here to “heal” some things I had. Maybe it just put me here to put me in the best possible place before life started to crumble. Maybe I needed to get stronger and learn more about who I was before all this happened. At one point when I told myself “my personal life can’t get any worse” and just to hang on, I lost you. The unthinkable happened.

I was listening to a podcast during my run today and they were talking about how you are a match for your mountain. So life wouldn’t throw at you what you couldn’t get through. If you would have told me what my 38th year of life was going to consist of, I would have told you there’s no way I could handle that. Count me out, new future please. I would have bartered anything and everything that I have just to not go through it. Here I am though and I don’t know why or how. I’m so thankful for you guys, you have been my focus and what I worked for since you guys were born. After everything happened, my focus was still on you guys and what needed to happen for a best case scenario for you. When I lost you, I lost that future that I had in my mind. I’m still trying to do my best for all four of you. Even though you’re not here, I’m still doing all I can for you.

Today at the store I saw a Lego family tree. At first I told the boys how cool it was and that would be perfect for us. I walked past it though, because randomly spending $80 on a Lego set wasn’t in my plans for the day. However, on my way past it again I grabbed it. Once we get it together, I want to have it next to your urn. Do you want to know the best part of it? It has clips that literally hold pictures. I will make sure you are in every single picture that I put on it.

I wish I could go back, just for one day. I would go back to any day with you, at any age. Please help give me some motivation for my run tomorrow morning. I have 8.7 miles and right now I don’t want to wake up at 5am to do it. I love you more than anything, sweetie. You guys were always the one thing I knew that I did right. It didn’t matter what happened or what I had, you guys there made everything okay. I just want to feel like you’re “here” again in some sort of way. I love you more than anything. Please watch over us and don’t forget about the dinosaur dream. Goodnight and sweet dreams, my baby.