Dear Jakey,

So I wrote another boy a letter today. Another boy in Heaven. I think you might know him because after you died I asked him to watch over you. And in this crazy world of belief and faith and life after death, I am trying to find comfort in it all and believe in it. Ed Loomis died a few years back and had he still been here on Earth he would turn 20 tomorrow. A drunk driver killed him when he was only 17. And he is buried close to you. I know you know who he is. I see his Dad sometimes. He doesn’t seem to go every day like us but it seems like when he goes he stays a real long time. Sometimes he just sits in his truck. You can just tell how he still misses his boy so much. Anyways, since tomorrow is his birthday I wrote him a letter and left it at his grave. I just wanted him to know how much his dad misses him and how I trusted him to look after you even when I never knew him on Earth. I hope his parents don’t think I am totally wacko. We’ll see.

Anyways, I miss you. A lot. I keep picturing you and getting so upset that you are gone. Each day that passes is simultaneously harder and easier. Easier because like all things – it just becomes a habit. I have become used to not making you food or mixing meds. Or worrying about feeding you or checking temperatures obsessively. All those things have subsided. But each day also brings me a day further from remembering your smell or when your  keto breath was kicking or the way your hair looked after the bath or the way you looked on my arm when you fell asleep. Ethan and I were just talking about the sneer you used to make. I just want it all back in real-time – not in memory or photographs but in the here and now. And that doesn’t get better with each passing day. It gets worse.

Lots of love,

Mommy