Leo,

I’m so tired and I know I need to sleep but I can’t. I keep thinking about the moment I realized that something was wrong- the moment I told your dad to call 9-1-1 – the look on his face when I told him you weren’t breathing – the horror that I couldn’t yet accept when I laid you on my bedroom floor to start CPR. I need to sleep but I can’t because it reminds me of my last “goodnight”…the one I didn’t know was our last.

It’s been nearly seven years and not a moment goes by where I can’t feel that memory bubbling just below the surface. It’s become a part of me and I can’t see past it sometimes. People tell you that tomorrow isn’t promised and when you hear stuff like that you think, “oh yeah, so true,” but in the back of your mind you’re like “that’s cute- but tomorrow will come for me and my loved ones.” I know what it’s like to go to sleep as one person with one life and wake up completely changed with a completely different life. Tomorrow really isn’t promised.

I need to sleep but I can’t. What if I close my eyes and wake up to a completely changed life again? It could happen. I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen to me but we both know that it could. I don’t think I could survive another tragedy like ours.

I don’t want to close my eyes because I’m not ready to say goodnight to my beautiful family. My life over the past seven years has grown into a masterpiece mosaic made of the broken bits of my heart. It’s beauty dares you to try not to believe that God is real and that He is good.

Your sisters make me feel joy like I never imagined I’d ever feel again. They make me proud, they make me grateful, they lift my soul so high that I wonder if heaven isn’t right here in my house with us. Your dad is the love of my life, my best friend, the most spontaneous and energetic person I’ve ever encountered. If I close my eyes, will I ever get to see them smile again? I don’t want to risk it.

I need to sleep but I can’t because my life is so good and I don’t want it ripped away from me again.

I love you my beautiful son. My soul screams your name into the universe with every beat of my heart in hopes that you’d somehow come back to me. These are cries that will never be answered…won’t stop me from trying though.

I need to sleep. I’m going to close my eyes in faith and trust that God’s will for my life is bigger and better than anything I could ever dream up. I’ll see you in my dreams beautiful boy.

Love you forever and ever,

Mom

Leo,

I celebrated our birthday this year. It was really special and I actually felt happy. I got the sign you sent me when we went to visit you at the cemetery. I live for moments of confirmation like that one.

I know you’re still with me. I feel you. I miss you and I wish I could see you, hold you, snuggle you…be the mom to you that I am to your sisters.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day you left this Earth. Tonight is the anniversary of the last night I got to kiss your sweet warm cheeks. The next time I would see you- you would be dying in our arms. I hate that this is part of our story.

I’m really proud to tell you that I’ve lost all of the weight I gained after your death. I’ve finally let go of the physical manifestation of the weight of my grief- my “grief weight” as I called it. Physically, I feel so much better! Emotionally, well, suffice it to say that I’ve accepted your death, but it’s always going to hurt.

I try not to focus on that though. There are a million good memories of you, of our 26 days together, and of the miracles and signs you’ve sent me. I focus on those things because I want to continue feeling joy.

I love you, son. You’re my heart and I’ll miss you forever.

Yours,

Mom

Hey Leo,

My letters have become fewer and far less often than when you first left me, but your absence continues to grow in my heart. I know I’ve got some serious walls up. I don’t know how I’d be able to go on without them.

When I think about you for too long, I remember what it felt like to hold you…or what I think it felt like. It’s been so long that I really can’t remember, which intensifies the sadness. I do remember kissing you a million times on your sweet face and little feet, but I don’t remember your smell. My memories are a lot like the photos that I have of you….still images of a moment in time. Just memories; nothing more, nothing less. When I think about what it feels like to be where you are now, I want to grab my shovel and exhume you myself so I can keep you warm and safe. It sounds crazy, I know, I’m pretty sure that other loss parents understand.

But your body is not really you anyway, is it?

When I remember you, I remember your body first. That’s the part of you that I held, kissed, swaddled, adored…that’s the part of you that died. I know your soul lives on somewhere, somehow, and I do find solace in knowing you’re still around in your own way.

But this is all too much.

I’m always thinking of you, but when I’m thinking of you with intention, I feel a pain that is indescribable. I’m flooded by sorrow, regret, anger, longing, guilt, and depression that is beyond the words that our vocabulary has to describe it. So I put up walls to protect myself and those around me. But those walls keep you out and I don’t want that either.

You’ve heard the saying “it’s like a car accident that I can’t not look at”? That’s my grief, my relationship with you. It’s so beautiful and sharply painful at the same time.

I know you’re with me, waiting for me to figure this all out, patiently popping in during the fleeting moments when my heart is the the right place to receive your messages. I know your grave is simply the place where we buried your shell and not all of whatever it is that made you, you. I know for certain that I’ll see you in Heaven and I’ll understand why all of this happened to us.

Until then, it’s just me and my walls and my hot mess of a life trying to make the most of what I’ve got and live the life you and your sisters want for us. I’m trying my best to not block out the good stuff and to leave the trauma in the past. It’s all kind of mixed together still.

I love you with every ounce of my being. I’ve never stopped loving you. I’ll never stop loving you. As long as I’m living, I’ll miss you and and think of you.

I’ll be here, watching for signs in those moments when my walls are down. Maybe someday they’ll be down forever. Who knows?

Until I wake up in heaven, I’ll be here, waiting.

Forever missing you,

Mom

Leo,

I haven’t written to you in so long.  I tried to make myself feel guilty for it, but I just don’t have the strength.  I am tired of feeling pain, sick of feeling sad, and angry with my fragile heart.  I just want the one thing that I know I do not get to have…you.

Writing letters to you and blog posts became a source of pain and not further healing.  I tried to bury my head in the sand and pretend like my heart had been restored.  But the honest truth is that I had just shut my eyes and did my best to act like you were still alive and part of my family.

That was fucking bullshit…and a bad idea.  It didn’t make me feel any better.  I felt like I had a huge secret stuffed inside of me, suffocating me, ballooning me up like the giant blueberry girl in the Willy Wonka movie.  How long could I keep it in?  Then, today…

BOOM

I can’t keep it in any more.  My “secret” exploded all over the place and there’s blueberry goo fucking up all of the nooks and crannies of my life.

You’re around me, I know it, I can feel it, but you’re not alive in flesh.  You’ll never know things about us and we will never know the things about you that come with living on this Earth.  I feel robbed but I don’t feel like a victim.  I just feel angry about it.

I can’t NOT think of what it would feel like to stroke your blonde hair while you sleep in my arms like a baby, even though you would be four years old and probably proclaim that you’re a “big boy”.    I can see, in my mind’s eye, where you would haphazardly throw your shoes in the living room, where your action figures would be carelessly discarded the moment your sisters ask you to come outside and play on the playground.

These thoughts feel so real.  They cut me so deeply but I couldn’t live without them either.  I know who you are because you are a piece of me and a piece of your dad.

I’m trying so hard to put my life back together, Leo.  I’m trying to set things straight, to stay on God’s path, to listen when I’m unsure, to follow when I feel led, to lead when I feel guided, to stop and pray when I feel lost.

But with every step, I stop and look around, and I only see three kids.

You’re missing.

You’re missed.

We all miss you terribly.  I really hate that you’re gone.

With all that I am and all that I have, I love you.

Mom

Well, today started off crappy. I was exhausted from Leo’s anniversary (it’s an emotionally draining day), and I had a huge half-day meeting pop up that I needed to facilitate…first thing in the morning.  Traffic was horrendous and Lily threw an amazing fit.  I couldn’t find my car keys (I just found them about 1 hour ago) and I was just flat out grumpy. 

I pasted a smile across my face and decided to fake it until i could get home and rest.  I made it though my meeting and actually did s pretty good job. 

I challenged God to show himself in a day like today.  A co-worker asked me how my day was and I told her about Leo’s anniversary and that I was having a tough day. She said she was too because today would have been her dad’s 77th birthday, but he passed away 5 years ago. 

I went on to tell her that my dad’s birthday is this Saturday and he would have been 70 if he hadn’t passed away 3 years ago.  I told her about my dad’s reaction to Leo’s death, about my dad’s accident, about his near death experience and what he saw when he was on his way to Heaven. 

I gave her a huge hug and told her that our dads are always with us. She told me a few stories about her dad, we shared a few laughs, and then went back to work. 

I was being pulled in ten directions and everything was highest priority.  My email wasn’t syncing, my calendar didn’t work right, and deadlines for various projects were weighing heavily on me.  

A quote had popped up that I started creating an image of during my big meeting, but I still hadn’t noticed God and I really didn’t have the time to think about it. An email popped up from my coworker near the end of the day and it was like God threw ice cold water on my head and shouted “Here I am!  I was here all along!   See how I did that?” 
Her email simply said “Thank You”.  She had told me earlier that I made her day but I hadn’t thought much about it.  And that quote that I started creating an image of?  Well, that quote was a perfect fit for the experience. 
God,

You are so rad!  Thanks for revealing yourself to me slowly and for making my day!  Thank you for turning my heartbreak into healing. 

Love,

Angela

This quote is from Glennon Doyle Melton of momastery.com