Hi sweetie,

I miss you. Your brothers and I talk about death a lot now. It’s pretty depressing, but today we went hiking on Kolekole. While we were hiking, we talked about different memories with you. We went down and gathered strawberry guavas from where you found them off the trail last year. Your brothers discussed selling them, just like you did. However, they were going to try to sell one strawberry guava for a dollar. I told them that’s a little steep. So they talked about it and got it down to “free”. They went to the “secret hideout” you originally founded. Elijah sat on his “cow” rock and Lucas said something about a trash can? If Lucas got too close to the edge, Elijah would yell at him and yell, “no, I can’t lose another brother!”. That happened three different times. I asked them if they thought you had watched over us. They said they thought you were there with us. We joked about how you went past the climbing tree when we turned around and you were scaling the climbing wall. Then we talked about what you might be living in. We figured you probably built yourself a Lego house or maybe even one out of magnetic blocks. You always used to say if you got powers from Santa you would shrink yourself and go into your magnetic block creations. Elijah said at one point that he would rather him have died and not you. He just turned five and these are the things he says. It’s heart wrenching, but I can completely understand what he means.

The loss of you has taught me so much about myself and my priorities before. My life plans were never to be a stay at home mom before I had kids. I loved my coaching job, but that’s not possible when we were moving every few years. I had wanted to be a teacher since I was in elementary so I would settle with that. Then I had kids. The second Ellie was born, everything changed. All of a sudden it wasn’t all about me and what I wanted. It was all about you guys. I needed to be the perfect mom. Since Ellie was the first born, she was the one on the strict napping schedule as I would cry and bounce her on the yoga ball at 3am to try and get her back to sleep. She was the only baby I bounced. I would not make that mistake again. Ellie didn’t have sugar till her first birthday when she had her birthday cake. By the time Elijah came, all those standards had gone down a little bit. How can I possibly keep the fourth child on a schedule when I have other kids in school and a two year old who also has to nap? I honestly feel that’s why Elijah is more easy going. I wish I wouldn’t have stressed about the things I stressed about. As soon as I lost you, I looked back and those things I worried about or thought were important actually meant nothing. I secretly stressed out over the fact that you weren’t tying your shoes. I ignored the fact that you really could, but were too lazy and didn’t want to do it. I mean, you had actually tied your shoes before. Not well, but they were tied. I ignored the fact that we’ve been living in Hawaii and the only time you wear shoes that tie are during sports. It seems so stupid now. You weren’t going to grow up and not know how to tie your shoes. You knew all your multiplication tables and was working on division in second grade. Why did I let the thought of you not tying shoes stress me out? I wanted to give you guys the best. In doing that, I thought I had to do everything perfectly. I spent time worrying about how clean the house was, if you ate too many pieces of pizza, that you didn’t know how to swim before we moved here! With each of those things, I stressed about them and thought I was failing. I started to hold myself up to these unrealistic expectations and lost myself in the process. Once I lost who I was, my focus went to being this super parent that did everything perfectly, had a clean house all the time, was always on top of school projects and spirit days, and cooked delicious and healthy meals every day. The problem was, I never met those standards. One morning I had to make Ellie a car out of boxes after I dropped her off for school. I forgot it was the “drive-in” movie and we were supposed to make a car for them to watch the movie in. I had to rush home with three other kids and create a car out of boxes in two hours. I made it in time, but I dropped the ball. Our house is never social media clean. I would get so caught up in trying to clean all the time that I missed precious time with you guys. I wish I would have said “screw the house” and just played in the mess or left the house with you guys to do something. Since losing you, I’ve realized none of that means anything. What mattered is how much I loved you. What mattered was telling you how much I loved you. What mattered was the times we all went to the rainbow park and played monster. I can see that now, but couldn’t then. I also found that the time I was stressing and cleaning, I could have done something for myself. Maybe I could have made a craft. Sure it wouldn’t be Pinterest worthy, but I would have enjoyed doing it. Maybe just not beating myself up all the time would have been enough self-compassion. I’m sorry I tried to be everything and in the process wasn’t as good of a mom as I could have been.

It sucks that losing you was what it took to snap me out of what I had been doing for years. You’re always told these cliche sayings, but you don’t usually act upon them until something happens. When you hear them, you think “I understand, but it won’t happen to me”. Once you’ve lost, you can fully understand every part of them.

Daddy and I were talking earlier about different memories. We went for a walk on troop trail one day and you really wanted to bring your Lightening McQueen ride-on car while we ran. We gave in, but the car didn’t last. Daddy ended up carrying you on his shoulders and the car in his hand. Then Ellie got that pink power wheel from Aunt Nae Nae for her birthday and you loved driving that. You refused help though and didn’t understand the steering wheel. So you would climb in that thing and literally drive around in a constant little circle. If daddy or I tried to grab the wheel and show you how to steer it, you yelled at us.

I’m trying to prepare for your birthday in six days. We are going to celebrate you, but there’s going to be a lot of tears from everyone. I don’t think anyone has seen you in a dream in a few days, daddy really needs it. Maybe you could show up and beat him in a soccer or basketball game? Do your amazing jukes on him, he won’t be able to touch you! I love and miss you so much baby. The only thing that is keeping me going is knowing that one day I will see you again. Love you so much, handsome.