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To those who have joined me on this journey, Thank you for walking with me through the first year.  Start at the Beginning

  My beautiful boy. I loved you from the moment you were born, right up to second that you died. I love you now. I don’t know if our story is over. I don’t know if the one time I saw you will be all that there is. But I do know this. I know…

  Dear Garrett, Slowly, I am better than I was. Doing the work that Tricia has asked me to do, and writing these letters to you, help me. The exercise that Tricia invited me into, of writing you a letter, has turned into this. It took nine months to write the first letter. And then…

  Dear Garrett, My mom sent me a gift. She knitted a sweater. I can only think of it as our sweater because I know she thought of you when she made it for me. My mother, who has macular degeneration, knitted this. I think of it as ours, and how can I not think…

  Dear Garrett, I’ve realized that if things exist only in your mind, they can take on epic proportions. You might know what I mean about that. Your anxiety and depression, and your losses, must have felt overwhelming, especially since you were so young. I wish I could have led you out of it, or…

  Garrett, I look at the photos I have around the house of you, now. The ones Kevin made from the video. I can look at you and say, I miss you, bud. I haven’t cracked open any old photo albums yet, but that is progress. I see you. I miss you And I can…

  Dear Garrett, This letter is for Tricia. Tricia, you’ve told me several times that a completed death was not a preventable death. That is such a difficult thing to hear. I want to have changed it. I want to have prevented it, and I did not. Or as you might say, I could not….

  Garrett, It’s taken almost an entire year to accept the fact that you have died. That you are gone. I haven’t wanted to do this. And I’ve resisted it. But, it is time. You are not coming back. I will never see you again in this life. There is a part of me that…

  Dear Garrett, I feel that I am winding down, but there a few things left I want to say.  This is for your friends. Jonathan. Thank you. You were there until almost the end. I know that you cared. I appreciate that you were there for as long as you could be. Thank you,…

  Dear Garrett, The time is getting close to the day you died, one year ago. I have relived that day, and accounted for it, the best I can, at this time. It took me seventy-one letters to find my way there. I see your beautiful form laying on the floor. My hand on your…

  Garrett, It was late summer after you died when I got sick. I was sick in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. My body felt like it was a thousand years old. I slept for ten hours, took a four-hour nap, and then went to bed early. I could feel myself slowing down…

  Dear Garrett, Whenever I see Jack in the Library, it tugs. Just a little. The first time was the hardest. You grew up together. You, Jack and Paul. Had countless sleepovers and played in the street all day. Parents would come out to supervise, and we’d visit while we watched over you. I thought…

  Dear Garrett, There are two pictures hanging on the walls of our new house that I want to speak of. Two large, framed pictures that I gave to you when you were younger. First, is the photo of the big blue wave that I gave to you on your sixteenth birthday. I saw this…

  Dear Garrett, The days immediately following the day of your death are not any that I want to speak of. They are days I have no wish to remember, and those days are buried in my bones.

  Garrett, The time has come. I need to be able to talk about the night you died. I’ve nibbled around the edges of it and now I need to face that day. I don’t want to. There is so much sadness and regret surrounding it. But I have to be able to do it,…

  Dear Garrett,  I went to see someone who was like a medium, but different. Her name is Serina. She’s an energy worker. I don’t know exactly what that is, but I have a friend who’s an energy worker, so I know it is a thing. Her work is to move energy that is stuck…

  Garrett,  When you died, I was obliterated. I ask myself, Why couldn’t I have done the one thing a mother is supposed to do? Why couldn’t I protect my child? Moms are supposed to always be there. They are supposed to give their children everything they need. Love, patience, understanding, guidance. My love was…

  Dear Garrett, You never believed you were not yourself when you were on drugs. And you never remembered what you said or did when you were on them. Anyone who has ever seen someone under the influence of the kind of drugs you were taking understands this. How could you see others under the…

  Garrett, When it became clear that your interest in school was negligible, we told you that it was time for you to get a job. You needed to do something with your time. You could do anything, we said. Anything you wanted. Why not try something that interests you? You got a job at…

  Garrett, The date of your death is coming up soon, and I haven’t yet talked about what happened. I know I need to. I need to pull it out and lay it down and go over it as I understand it. But I find I can’t do that until I’ve first looked at other…

  Garrett,  One the places where you felt at home was at Sheila’s ranch. If we could have moved you there, we would have. You loved horses. From an early age you wanted to learn how to ride. I sought out different camps for you and one day, I came across the website for Sheila’s…

  Dear Garrett,  Not long after you died, Alex came to the house. She brought bagels. I don’t think she meant to stay. I think she just meant to shove them into Kevin’s hands and get the heck out of there, but for some reason she did stay. On the porch. And waited for me…

  Dear Garrett, This calculator. This calculator that I use every week. The first time I sat down to pay bills after you died, I took the cover of the calculator off, and I froze. I had forgotten. I stared down at the inside of the cover, and the tears came. At some point, I…

  Garrett,  We got kittens. They are so fun. They remind me that I can love. That I can love something new. They are sweet and soft. And they make me laugh. I didn’t think I could take on kittens when Genevieve asked for them. I’m too broken to do this, I thought to myself…

  Dear Garrett, I really hate it that I know more now than I did then. What am I supposed to do with this knowledge? What does it matter now? This knowledge doesn’t help you. I am angry that I didn’t know enough to help you when you needed me. I am angry that I…

  Dear Garrett, This house is quiet since you’ve been gone. Peaceful, in a way. What did we gain with your absence? Peace? The ability to have friends over and enjoy an evening of socializing? No need to cancel a playdate for Genevieve when things felt too uncertain? Quiet? What did we lose with your…

  Hi, Garrett, I didn’t keep many of your things. I remember Kevin saying that you didn’t really have many things, and it was sad how little you had, but I thought differently. What had been important to you changed over time, and you got rid of the things that weren’t important to you anymore….

  Garrett, When you died, my family went into a tailspin. My parents, my brother and my sister. My brother and sister were probably mostly concerned for me, after the initial shock of hearing the news. My parents, though, they took it hard, bud. Really hard. Not only did they hurt for me, but they…

  Dear Garrett, I don’t like the last letter I wrote. I find that I don’t like to say negative or hurtful things about you. I don’t want people to see you in just one way. I’m unhappy about that last letter because it showed you in a poor light. I want to say, wait,…

  Beautiful Child,  One of the hardest things about being your parent was trying to get you to do things that you didn’t want to do. It was hard to guide you into being responsible or accountable for anything. You wouldn’t do it. You resisted, hard. I always felt that you wanted all the freedoms…