Even though thirty-three years have passed since you were born, this day always presents challenges for me. I am five seconds away from picking up the phone and calling your dad, even though it is early in the a.m. but I am reasonably sure that his thoughts are also resting on you just like mine are.

In a few hours, it will be your birthday, and then just like the candles that flicker on a birthday cake, your life wavered and you were gone.

I wish so much my son, I have so much love and many sorrows on this day. I wish I had held you when you passed. Did anyone hold you Jeremy as you were in the neo-natal ward inside of that incubator? I have never even asked your father if he was there when you took your final breath and went to join the angels. Did you know that you were loved my son? Did a nurse perhaps in attendance scoop you up in your arms and hug you tight before that last breath faded?

I wonder how your father would be different had you survived. Would he finally have connected with someone and loved them unconditionally? Would he have settled down in life instead of floating from one project to the next, disconnected from the world and searching for answers to questions never asked? Would the tow of you been the best of friends, or the worst of enemies?

I think of you every day my son, but this day and tomorrow, the thoughts of you flood over me and I cannot hold back the tears even after this long of a time.

There is no grave to visit, you were scattered at sea, free to surf the waves and ride the wind. To feel the freedom to join with God and become whole and at peace.

My hope is that someday soon I will see you again. I will be able to hold you in my arms and give you a million hugs and kisses that you missed out of when you left…”

I wrote this letter last night after midnight. This morning, I took three bright yellow helium balloons and wrote a letter to my son. I released the balloons at the lake with the letter attached. I do not know where the letter will end up, I just hope that whoever reads it, is somehow ministered or moved to care about a child in distress.