My baby boy,

There are aspects of me that I think have changed since your loss and today was an example. Elijah stayed home from school yesterday and didn’t seem much better today, so he wasn’t going to go. Ellie got picked up early from school yesterday and came into my room this morning saying she had a horrible headache, so I wasn’t going to ask questions and decided she would just stay home, too. Since they were both staying home, I just decided that Lucas was going to stay home with us. It seemed “unfair” and was honestly more work for me to bring him and pick him up. With everyone home, we were able to get some things accomplished.

Would I have done this before losing you? I’m not sure. I remember the road was closed the one day from Schofield to Wheeler, so I decided not to take Lucas to Pre-K that day. You and Ellie were both homeschooled and Elijah wasn’t in school yet. I took that opportunity for us to go to the beach and we enjoyed the morning at Pokai Bay instead. Maybe I feel as though I kept more kids home from school today than that time in Hawaii?

Do you remember how Lucas had Baby Dump Truck in Missouri? It was that hot wheels dump truck and he was obsessed with it and took it everywhere. He asked me tonight while I was putting him to bed if we could go back down to the park in Missouri and look for it. I told him I had no idea where he had lost it and that it’s been over five years now.

When we were talking about Baby Dump Truck, I started to smile and told him about the hot wheels garbage truck that you drove on the grill of the van and then accidentally dropped it in. We were dropping Ellie off at the 2x2 preschool in Waynesville and we were parked right up front in the parking lot when it happened. I called Pap to make sure it wouldn’t cause any damage to the car and then we drove around with that garbage truck in there for a few years until the van was getting repaired and someone got it out.

I’ve had a really bad day of missing you and just thinking about that brought me so much happiness.

I love you more than anything in the world, baby boy. Goodnight and sweet dreams.

I wanted to add that I just checked my memories and eight years ago today you had your first of two febrile seizures. We were supposed to go to an Easter egg hunt, but didn’t make it there. You had one more febrile seizure after that and then the seizure in the car driving from Virginia to Pennsylvania. Was it a warning for all this?