Happy 12th birthday, Noah!

Dear Noah,

Another year has passed, and here we are again on another birthday, and it’s time for another letter. How are you 12?! It’s the last year before you become a teenager, and I just can’t believe it. You would have maybe just completed 6^th grade, looking ahead to 7^th. You’d most likely be tall like the rest of us, and I wonder if you would be challenging my height, wearing the same size shoes as me and such. Aaron can already flop around in mine in a pinch. And, who knows what you would have been into at this age if you were here. When you are in the thick of raising small kids, it feels like that stage will last forever, but wow, this does slip away fast.

What a year this has been. The world is still insane and getting through this period in our history has been tough. It has asked a lot of all of us, and we have, as we always do, risen to the occasion and figured out how to get along. Praying, praying, praying that the light at the end of the tunnel continues to get brighter. Your dad and I are now vaccinated, which is a relief. Having had one of us get sick and die once already in our family’s history really does make situations like this especially scary, so I really need your siblings vaccinated too. I know everybody is working as hard and as fast as they can get to us all there, so trying to be patient in the meantime.

I know I asked you many times at the start of this school year to please help us get through this. Well, high fives to us, because we did get through it, and it really turned out ok. It turned out great even! I am completely exhausted from trying to do so much this year between working and managing homeschool, but we did it, and it is gratifying to see how much your brother and sister have learned, the unique ways things could be customized to catch up or learn new things that were especially interesting or important. I think we all learned a lot through doing it.

What I am really trying to work on now is gracefully letting go and embracing what is ahead. I’ve been holding on pretty hard to get us all through it, and it’s getting to the place that it is really ok to let it go now. Help me to see that please. I have really neglected myself in all of this and could use the space to get healthy and centered and have a more balanced life. We all need to do it honestly and have the courage to explore and reinvent what life looks like from here. I know you are always behind the scenes, cheering for what’s best for us, so please help us get to where we need to be.

It seems silly to say this because having and losing you has certainly forced me to be stronger and more resilient, but I don’t always feel so strong and resilient, and wish I could be stronger for you. It is 12 years in, and I still think of you daily, and miss you, miss you, miss you. It is the greatest regret of my life that I will never get to watch you grow up. But that was never in the plan for you, was it? I still choose to have you in my life however I can, even if it isn’t the way I would choose.

Please continue to be there in the background always, loving and guiding us. Keep sending the signs to let us know you are there. We all look for them, and celebrate when a rainbow is in the sky, or a monarch butterfly flies past, or any other of the small coincidences that can only come from you. We all love you lots, talk of you often, and miss you more than you could possibly know. Happy birthday, sweet boy. We made it through another year.

Lots of love to you from me always,

Mom