3 years

Dear Jakey,

So today has come and now it is almost over. As this day approaches it brings about so many different feelings: anticipation mixed with dread, anxiety combined with melancholy and a need to simultaneously make time slow down and speed up. We went to Montreal for the weekend again and spent in pretty similar to last year. Just the three of us keeping busy but also relaxing. It is like these days are finding the balance among extremes. 

I went for a run Saturday morning. And it was so cold but it felt good. It was quiet and often times I was all alone in my run and in my thoughts. I ran past the grassy fields in the Old Port where I would sit and feed you while Daddy and Ethan flew kites. I ran past where we caught the duck boat and the Science Museum we spent so much time at. And I ran past the Embassy Suites we stayed at with you. We stay at a different hotel now but we peeked in and I like knowing you were there. 

And now this day is almost over and eventually I will be back in some sort of normal rhythm. I can never quite remember how long it takes each year but I can say that I think each year has gotten harder. Or at least this year has. It comes on quick and there is no switch that makes it go away. And I was thinking by now I would be feeling more myself but I’m not. Instead I am thinking about the days after you died and how horribly impossible they were. And how it felt at that moment when they had to close the casket. And it just about knocks to my knees like it did that day. 

And the worst part is that I realized that next year when we go through this it will mark 4 years that you are gone which will be the same amount of time you were alive. And then the next year will bring about the first anniversary where you were gone more that you were alive. And I can’t wrap my head around any of it. 

So Jakey, I miss you so much, I miss everything about you and I would do anything to have my life with you back. 

Love,

Mommy

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giving thanks

Dear Jakey,

I started this letter to you on Sunday with the intentions of writing an optimistic and positive letter.  I got about 3 lines in and I quit. And tonight I erased them. It just feels entirely inauthentic to write about being thankful at this time of year. As each day passes and we get closer to the inevitable date of December 8th, I find myself on edge and to be honest, anything but thankful. Our awesome Thanksgiving seems like a million years ago, even though it was less than a week ago. The balloons, the parade, dos caminos, thanksgiving dinner, Sarena, getting our tree, decorating, shopping with Kir and all that was amazing truly seems like it as the other end of a tunnel that separates me from real life. I am in a bubble at the end of the tunnel now and the bubble sucks. It is the bubble that reminds me how awful it was when you died. And how much it sucks that you were taken from me, on a random Wednesday night, after Ethan’s TKD class right here in our living room. I hate the memories of that day and those that followed and I hate this time of year. And I have so little left to give. But in a somewhat pathetic effort to keep it together I keep trying to give thanks for what I can in my life: for you, for knowing you and for being your mom. Because time will never take that away. And I am thankful for smaller, stupider things. Like the fact that TKD moved locations and I never have to sit in the seat that I sat in when I spoke to Ace’s mom about you that night, never knowing that 2 hours later you would be dead. And I am eternally thankful for your brother and his spirit which I know you have a lot to do with. I miss you buddy, more than you could ever imagine, more than I can even grasp.

Love,

Mommy

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