Some of you may know that my 9yr old son Elijah died 16 months ago from DIPG, a rare pediatric brain cancer. Today my sister showed me this, a newly discovered thank you letter he wrote to his cousin Dylan (now 14) after his last Christmas in 2016. 1/9 
It’s filled with all sorts of insider jokes about the things Elijah and his cousins did to torment his sister Genevieve, and special walks that Dylan took Elijah on during his last visit to San Diego. Elijah died less than four months after this. 2/9
It’s been a year and four months to the day since my little boy died and, though I am no longer immobilized by grief throughout the day, all it takes is a little reminder of him and the pain is as raw as ever. I spent a year caring for him as he slowly died, 3/9
Filled with overwhelming love and grief, side by side. There just aren’t sufficient opportunities and outlets for processing the love I still have for Elijah, much as I try with his sister and the other important people in my life through whom he still lives. 4/9
Dylan is going to frame this letter and put it on his wall. And now I’m here caressing a piece of paper on which he wrote silly little jokes in his jerky handwriting, hands palsied by the brain tumor stealing his life, because he is no longer here for me to caress in person. 5/9
And so we, parents who have lost our children to DIPG or some other shitty disease or tragedy, talk to objects - photos, drawings, stuffed animals, clothing they would have long ago outgrown, the necklace I wear with his fingerprint on it, or the urn containing his ashes 6/9
that sits on my kitchen table and that Genna and I say good morning or good evening to, and which we tell how much we love him. We talk to objects and caress these things that our children once touched because even 16 mos. after Elijah died the enormity of it still sometimes 7/9
makes me feel like I’m going to just lose my mind. And there is no amount of work, booze, exercise, socializing, or anything else that can distract for very long. And so here I sit, examining every letter of every word of this newly discovered treasure from my son, 8/9
wishing more than anything that I could hear him read it in his own voice, an impish smile on his face as he trades a knowing look with his cousin, while my daughter Genna scampers away in the background screaming and laughing. 9/END
