Dear Jakey,

Not a lot has changed since I wrote you last. Although if at all possible, I feel like I just talk to you even more. Sometimes, I feel a little crazy because you truly are my sounding board for everything – and it can’t be an easy task particularly as I work towards being a somewhat kinder, gentler version of me with more patience to boot. It remains so difficult for me sometimes as I try to keep perspective. The loss of you has heightened so many emotions for me and it truly is that I just feel somethings so much more than I ever did. Or maybe I notice things I never noticed. I see good friends going through their own struggles and it leaves me so much more saddened than I ever remember being. I think knowing the quickness with which things can change has just forever damaged by ability to regulate emotion – and it sometimes makes me so much sadder about things and so much madder about things. I hate that people can walk away from people and things that matter.

Part of me also has a very selfish reason for missing you so much lately. I miss the downtime. I miss the excuse of you – which may sound awful but you know what I mean. I miss being able to justifiably say “no, I can’t” about things.  I miss the routine. I miss the comfort that came with making your food, feeding you every 3-4 hours and giving your meds. And taking you to MIPT and to yoga. And scheduling Xavier. I miss the direction my life had and the way everything else came second. And now I have a hard time regulating it all. I have a hard time being where I need to be and doing what I need to do because it all seems like it should still come second. And it becomes this obvious hole in my life that everything else is no longer second, it just is. And my first priority is gone. And there is just no way to replace it. To replace you.

I sometimes think you are everywhere around us. And I like that. I like that I feel you guide me and Ethan. But it is still so very hard because it just isn’t enough sometimes. Or most times. I miss you my little buddy.

Love,

Mommy