Dear Jakey,

I sort of don’t know where to start. I just know I have so much to tell you and as we plug along here on Earth it remains so hard. Life happens in waves now and it isn’t always easy to ride them out. We did a lot of work this weekend on your grave. Saturday we planted and moved the tree. Sunday we added edging and finished up. It is just about done now. It looks beautiful but there is something so completely devastating about it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how different things are this summer. We were in the middle of some super hot days last week. Really really hot. The kind of hot that would have been hard for you. And I would have been a major pain for everyone worrying about if you are getting enough water and keeping you hydrated. And I think it has made me extra sad lately because it is just another one of the many things that are so noticeably different. And I don’t want to have to miss you anymore. I just want to be with you. I am jealous sometimes of Ethan and how he processes the loss. He talks so much about you and was explaining to me this weekend that sometimes when he is here on Earth, his head leaves and goes to Heaven so he can talk and check on you. He said it happened everywhere, like sometimes when I thought he was at school, he really wasn’t. He was with you. I wish that I could always have the same strong blind faith. For me, it is part of the waves again. Sometimes faith comes so easy and other times it just takes more work.

Amy Winehouse died. I bet you remember Ethan singing “Rehab” back at our old house. He was only two and used to run around singing it while Karen worked with you. I can picture those days. And even then we knew that she might not make it long. I didn’t know then the gut wrenching feeling of loss so intimately so it back then it was a tragic story in the most general of terms. Now it is so much sadder than you can imagine. Death of pretty much anyone affects me so much now because we now really understand the forever part and the having to continue you on without the most important people in your life. And to do it in the wrong order. Burying kids should never happen and regardless of why it happens you just know that there are people trying to pick up the pieces.

Love,

Mommy