Hi sweetie,

I saw you this morning, but it was in another little boy. I’m guessing he was maybe five or six years old. He was sitting on the bench outside of Daniel K and looked kind of upset. He reminded me of you though because he had the same eyes as you. Not the same color or anything, but his eyes were kind of deep set like yours. You probably won’t even understand what I’m saying because I can’t describe it well, but that’s what I’m calling it.

Elijah had therapy this morning. When I talk to your siblings’ therapists I have “aha moments”. We were talking about the times when Elijah gets angry. He’s started yelling a lot more since we lost you. It’s still only once every few days, but it’s more than before. He seems to get very frustrated with Lucas and Ellie when they’re trying to boss him around. I realized that before, you guys would always just pair off with someone else if you were fighting. Ellie really doesn’t play with the boys anymore and if he’s fighting with Lucas, he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I remember when you guys would have an argument with one another. You’d argue, then declare you’re done playing with them, then go to another sibling to loudly state that they were going to play whatever game with you now. That’s the cycle you guys always had.

We had a clean-up party to both the Zombies 2 and Descendants 2 soundtracks. I’m surprised everyone let me just leave them on, usually there’s always at least one complainer. I know you would have listened to it for a few songs, but then you would have wanted one of your songs put on. Bad Moon Rising? Black Hole Sun? Maybe just the weird Covid remix of that song they made for Big City Greens.

The house is clean, it smells like fall, and nobody is crying tonight. I should make note of that as a win. I’m just tired of feeling this torn apart. I’m tired of feeling like I’m inches away from giving up and trying to give myself a constant pep talk that I can “make it through” this. I’m still dealing with how the world just gets up and continues every single day even though I’m not ready for it. I know you’ll be there with me to help me figure this out. You’ll be there with me at all the future “big life” moments. It’s just hard to be okay with that when only having you that way is just crap. I’m tired, baby. So tired.

I love you so so much. Goodnight and sweet dreams, my baby.