Moms

  • My Memoir and a Million Buses

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    https://loveletterstowill.com/book

    Thursday, October 8, 2026

    Dear Will,

    So remember on the morning of my book launch in Redwood when I asked you to please wear a clean shirt—one that wasn’t three sizes too big, and to find a pair of socks that didn’t have a hole, and to comb your hair? Remember I requested that you not interrupt and how I pleaded with you to not throw in a crazy weather event on that afternoon? Well, you were magnificent, Willy. On that afternoon, as you sat on my left shoulder where the boys angels sit you helped me share our story with a room full of people who mean the world to me. Our little story—my memoir—has officially launched and now I have to trust that it will do what I set out wanting it to do—to give hope to others who are navigating the loss of a loved one. 

    It feels good to finally hold our story in my hands. It took years to gather up the courage to share this labour of love in such a public way and I am proud of us, Willy. It is a beautiful tribute to you, a wonderful testament to your dad and your brothers of how we lived and loved as a little family of five, and also a tribute to those who journeyed alongside me. Ultimately though, it is a beautiful love story between a boy and mom who refused to let loss separate them—that’s US! And here we are tighter than ever because saying goodbye was just too hard and I just couldn’t do it. And here I am, 15 years later, writing to you still. Why? Because I still don’t want to say goodbye. 

    As we bask in the afterglow of that incredible afternoon, I imagine you are back in your over-sized t-shirt, with holes in your socks, not caring one little bit about what your hair looks like, and I think I can hear you giggling… I have an inkling that you are trying to be the mastermind behind our weather forecast this weekend… Snow?! What the heck, Will! I guess we’ll have to wait and see if you get the last word on this one…

    My sweet boy, I love you more than a million buses lined up bumper to bumper all the way to where you are and where I am. It sounds far, but in our shared little world it isn’t really. Sometimes it feels like a million buses away but I know the distance is only just a heartbeat. And maybe that is the magic in believing that those we love and lose are never truly gone. If it is then I’ll take it every single time and forever.

    Momxo

  • When Missing You is Forever

    May 10, 2020

     My dear, sweet boy,

    I miss you.

    But it’s so much more than that.

    I’m not sure there are words to even describe what missing you forever feels like. There is a quote that I frequently refer to that I think sums it up best…

    Sometimes one person can be missing and the whole world feels empty.

     … Yup, “empty” feels like the right word. But again, it’s so much more than that.

     And, it’s May. The hardest month of the year. Every day a sad reminder of the day our world changed forever. I wonder every May if your angel date won’t sting so much, but almost nine years later, the sting still stings.

     And, today is Mother’s Day. You and Justin and Ben are the best part of me and I am missing all of you.

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    The social distancing restrictions due to COVID-19 have not allowed me to see your brothers but, thankfully, that is a “just for now” thing. I will see them soon, but you, Will, are the one I will miss forever. Today I think of my own Mom, your Nana, and how much she means to me — how in this world she is the one person I’ve known the longest (ahem, like my whole life!) and whom I have always been able to count on in good times and in bad. I hope you know that every minute of your 12 ½ years I loved you more than the minute before and that all these days later my big love for you just gets bigger.

    My heart smiles recalling all the beautiful, and sometimes funny, gifts and kind gestures that you and your brothers and Dad did to make Mother’s Day extra special for me. I am lucky to have had all of what you boys could muster when what mattered the most was that we were together. Believe me, Will, I have tucked every special memory and every cold piece of toast into my heart. I have kept every homemade card and gift you boys ever made at school and that big box of love is one of my most treasured possessions. Today I will spend my day touching and reading every one of them remembering the tiny and not-so-tiny hands that created them.

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     I will pause and remember the sound of your infectious giggle and call to mind how you’d sit at the kitchen table with that big tub of Crayola markers and crayons and construction paper and pipe cleaners and stickers and tape. Oh, how you loved tape. With a juice box and a bowl of fishy crackers at your side.

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    My sweet Will, I miss you so very much. I miss all the yesterdays, I miss you today and I will miss you for all the tomorrows.

    And I love you. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, forever… Like a bus from here to forever and then a whole bunch more.

     

    Momxo