My sweet boy,
This is hard. I had built up some confidence in myself the last two years. I had been more aware of my strength and I could really feel it. I know I’ve cried literally every single day since we’ve lost you, but it’s an inner strength I felt. I feel like as soon as the plane landed in Pittsburgh, I lost it. I’m doing what I always do and panicking and thinking I’m regressing back to the beginning. I’m going to fall all the way back down the huge mountain I’ve been climbing. I know that’s not what happens and the longer I stay in that mindset, the longer this phase is going to last.
I still feel completely disconnected from you. Aunt Sarah came over yesterday and we got to meet Gabriel. You would have thought he was so cute. I watched you one day at the park while you and Carson were over sitting in the grass with Noah. You guys were looking at dirt or something with her. You were my crazy rough and tough boy, but could be so kind and gentle. Aunt Sarah brought me some framed pictures of the four of you and also me with you guys. As a mom, I feel like I don’t have very many pictures of you guys with me in it. I hung them up in the dining room today. They look beautiful. I packed a lot of pictures in the bins that went on the plane with us, but I feel like the little frames get lost in everything else in the house. Once our stuff comes I will get to go and unpack all the art you’ve made and even see the toys you made so many memories with. Maybe then it’ll feel like you’re closer to me. I have actually thought about maybe going to buy a Lego set tomorrow for us to build for you. I had two we planned on making for you, but they got packed by the movers.
I had to meet with a new therapist today. I made a few appointments with different people to kind of see who I click with more. It was just me going back over the last almost two years of my life and what has happened. I hate having to chronologically sit there and list the events that occurred through that time. I feel like I’m just sitting there and checking off boxes. “Traumatic life event #1, check. Traumatic life event #2, check, more than traumatic life event #3 of losing you, check”. It just feels so odd to just naturally sit here and quickly go through these events that have changed the course of my life and who I am. These events that completely erased the entire future that I thought I had ahead of me.
I wish you could just come and sit with me. You’d most likely be clearing five foot now, but you and your Great Dane self would find a way to cuddle up with me on the couch. I wish I could just walk out into the living room, buy the Dog Man movie online, and sit down and watch it with you. You could get excited at all the different parts from the books. You’d most likely start to fall asleep and then claim you weren’t. The sleep would eventually win and then you’d be snoring away on the couch. That’s just a dream now. It’s actually a dream I’d love to have. Maybe you can visit me in one of my dreams and that’s what we can do. I’d want to just sit there and watch you breathe as you slept.
Isaiah, my world is so different without you. It feels like there’s constantly this huge hole in my life. It’s like grief is a person that just follows me around every day and just sits with me in the corner of the room, staring at me. I’d like to start to feel like grief and I can get along and coexist. I want to stop feeling so separated from it. Maybe if it felt more comfortable than I would feel more of a lightness in my every day.
I love you more than anything, my sweet boy. Goodnight and sweet dreams.