My sweet boy,

Elijah didn’t go to school today, so I didn’t go to work. He randomly started yelling yesterday that his “ears burned” and then slept horribly. I took him to urgent care this morning and it turns out that he has a double ear infection. Unlike you, Ellie, and Lucas who all had about a hundred ear infections and then ear tubes by a year and a half old, Elijah has never had a single ear infection. I’m pretty sure he never dealt with all the ones you guys did when he was younger was because of Covid. We weren’t going out to playgroups, your siblings weren’t in school, there weren’t any germs so he never really even got sick.

I need to get started on everything for your celebration at the park next month. I don’t know why I think it needs to be this bigger thing than last year, because it doesn’t, but my mind has me thinking that it should evolve from last year.

This was a problem last year, though. I spent so much time and energy “planning” for this day that it’s kind of like I was running away from why I was having it. I don’t want that to happen again this year, but I don’t know how to plan this event and simultaneously focus on the fact that I needed to face that it’s been two entire years without you.

The other day when I was thinking about the event, my mind randomly went to that morning. I just thought about how on May 31st, I would think back and say “two years ago today I woke up for the last time with my oldest son”. I then of course went through all the details of that morning; you guys had a Lego challenge, you complained that eggs were gross, I let you have funfetti pancakes, even though dad and I weren’t talking, I felt the need to text him where exactly we were going before we left the house, you made an ordeal about how it was your body board and nobody else would use it while I put it in the trunk. I paid special attention to the scenery as we drove there that morning because I thought it was my last time going to Ko Olina before we moved to Pennsylvania.

I could continue, but my mind is starting to now just spiral into an entire replay of that day and I don’t want to go there. I have therapy tomorrow, so I will see how I can plan your event while mentally preparing myself for the reality that I will be faced with that day.

We will hit two years without you, Lucas will reach an older age than you ever made it to, and then it’ll be your birthday, all from May 31st to July 20th. It’s a nightmare.

I love you more than anything in the world, my baby boy. I miss you so much and wish you were here to tell me you’re doing “okay”. Goodnight and sweet dreams.