My baby,

The wave of grief just comes and goes. Last night after I wrote your letter, I went to look for a video of you. I usually just quickly scroll down and stop to see if it’s a video with you in it. I don’t want to go through watching them all and after I post them I usually don’t watch them. Ellie saw me looking for videos and asked me to send her some videos from right before everything happened.

I went back to last May and just started trying to find videos. The first videos I sent her were from when you guys made Lego cars and were racing down the slide at the park by our house. It was dark out and each one of you took a turn being the announcer/host. I saw the date and realized it was three weeks before everything happened. Just three freaking weeks. Seeing that started to just mess with my head and then I lost it. Ellie wanted more videos so I found about five more and quickly sent them.

Lucas was missing you more tonight. He asked for my phone because he wanted to see a video of the last time we saw you. When he originally said this, I thought he just wanted a regular video of you playing or something. However, he wanted the video of your honor walk. He found it and put it on. I was in Elijah’s bed doing his puzzles with him and we both started to get upset hearing the music. Elijah asked Lucas to turn it down and we turned on Amazon story time to drown out the video.

Videos hit differently. I’m able to look at pictures without a physical response. I will miss you, but my body stays in whatever state it was. When I see a video, my chest automatically gets tight and it’s like I have something stuck in my throat. My breathing starts to get heavier and the crying automatically just starts. With pictures, I will get tears, but not completely crying.