Dear Joshua,

It's been such a long time since I've written to you. Life has been busy, and your brother and sister have kept me on my toes. But the busyness doesn't take away my longing to see you again.

I've been doing remarkably well just trying to live life.  We have fallen into a pattern of living that our family is comfortable with. We are far enough out from your death, that most people now know what happened, so the awkwardness of going to the grocery store and worrying about who I will see is pretty much gone. Now we just face the awkwardness of the dreaded question "How are you doing?"

I'm not sure how to answer that, Joshua. Some days I'm doing really well. Others, like this past weekend, I've wanted to crawl in a hole and cry the day away. Some days the pain is minimal, I can think about you, think about that awful morning that you went Home, and remember you without a tear in sight. Other days, the thought of you sends me into a full blown flashback. It shuts me down for a day, and the pain is too much to bare.

I love when I am able to think of you with joy rather than sadness. Your life meant so much to me. It brought about a richness that I have never experienced before. Your life has blessed our lives in ways that I have never shared in writing. However, when you left this Earth, you took a piece of my heart with you. I will never be the same person I was on October 5th.  Everything has been rocked to it's core- my faith, my relationships, my priorities, everything is different.

Joshua, something else that I have come to terms with is that we would have never put you through what you had to endure if we had known that you weren't going to make it. Your daddy and I have no regrets in regards to your care, except for the fact that you had to endure so much in your little life. If we had known that you were going to die, we would have never put you through the Norwood or the Shunt Revision. You would have never known that kind of pain. I'm sorry, sweet baby. I'm sorry that your life only consisted of pain, drugs, and hospitals. You never knew the sunshine, the smell of home, the feeling of being tube and wire free, or the love of your brother and sister. I'm so sorry for that. Had we known, we would have taken you home and loved you with our entire being until it was time for you to go Home. You didn't deserve a life of that kind of pain. If only we had known.

Joshua, there is so much more I want to tell you, but like I said earlier, your brother and sister are keeping me on my toes. I just wish that you were here to keep me even more busy.

I love you more than I can ever express. I miss you so very much.

Love,

Your Mama