My baby boy,

What the heck is going on? Just one week ago I was secretly so proud of the work I had done on myself and so much more confident in myself and knowing what I want and am striving for. Now I’m here doubting every move I’m making, feel like I’m on edge about everything, and feeling more “lost” than I’ve been in a while.

While I understand this is a huge life transition and one I’ve never made before, I thought I would seamlessly go from the person I was in Hawaii and take that to Pennsylvania. I understand I’m exactly the same person, but all this doubt hasn’t crept in since before you passed. Once you passed, I think I was just on a mission to keep everyone together and work on healing. There wasn’t time for all these extra thoughts to constantly be on my mind.

I was going to say that the one thing I’ve always been confident in was being your mom, but that would be a lie. Even when it was only Ellie, I doubted my abilities as she cried all day, every day and I could never get her to sleep. I think I’ve wondered if I’m ruining all your lives about a million times. Will you need tons of therapy because of me? I worried about sending you to public school, I worried about how I was doing homeschooling, I worried I wasn’t “present” enough, I worried the house was too messy because I would rather do things with you guys than clean all the time. I knew deep down that I loved you as much as I possibly could. I may have made a ton of mistakes, but I loved you so much. There’s now a huge hole in our lives without you.

We were at the store today and I saw Ellie just looking at your picture on her phone. She zoomed in and was just staring at your face. I just told her I missed you too and understood that it was a freaking horrible situation. There’s nothing more you can say about your loss, it sucks.

I’m going to try and get my direction back. I’m going to channel my inner Isaiah who would never give up. Nobody could tell you how difficult something was, you were going to do it even if you had to completely come up with a new way.

I would give everything I have, even my life, to have you back here. You deserved so much in this world, but your experience got cut short. I love you more than anything, sweetie.