Today, Tomorrow and Thank You

ByJoni Bouchard
Will and I

December 31, 2017

Dear Will,

Today as I let 2017 out the back door and welcome 2018 in the front door I want to thank you. I thank you for following me around this past year and for sitting on my left shoulder where the boy angels sit, constantly whispering in my ear, “Mom, I love you and you can do this.” You have never waned in your ability to assure me that indeed you are near and that the veil to the other side is thin. Through closed eyes and an open heart I have seen your boyish smile and heard your mischievous giggle when I have called your name. You have taken me by the hand and pulled me through my hardest days of this year and sat with me and offered me comfort when, no matter what, I just had to cry. I have come to know that there will always be moments when it is unbearable to live my days with you on the other side. But I have also learned that you’re right, somehow I can do this.

Will
Will

Your light is bright, Will, and I trust with my whole heart that you will continue to guide Dad and me and your brothers as we live here on this side. Tonight I will search for your star — the middle one on Orion’s Belt in the Orion constellation that shines the brightest in these winter months — and I will pause and say thank you and tell you that I love you more. I know you’ll be with me tonight as I say goodbye to 2017 and hello to 2018. And I know you’ll be with me tomorrow and the next day and the next and the next… on my left shoulder and in my heart where you’ll always be. When I lay my head on my pillow at the end of this night I will dream of the day when we meet again face to face and how beautiful that embrace will be. The very best part about that day will be that instead of being on my left shoulder you’ll be in my arms.

Love you, sweet boy. Bigger than a bus and all the way to your star on Orion’s Belt and back.

Momxo

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  • All Good Dogs Go To Heaven

    Our Finn and Old Buck
    Our Finn and Old Buck
    Thursday, March 28, 2013 (676 days without you) Dear Willy, Jess, next door, put old Buck down yesterday.  Over the last year and a bit his quality of life was diminishing quite rapidly and understandably so. At almost 15 years old (105 in doggie years) he wasn’t the same Buck you’d have remembered.  Oh, how you loved that dog and he, you. When I spoke to Jess today she told me that one of her fondest memories was when you and Ben would wander over to their house when they were just new to our cul-de-sac to ask if you could take Buck for walks.  I will always remember how cute the two of you looked with Buck as I watched your backs head down the street. It will be odd to not see old Buck out and about but my heart smiles knowing that now he has you.  He has you to take him for walks pain-free in heaven.  And you have an old pal to keep you company; to sit at your feet, to pet, and to cuddle up to. It’s no secret that you always wanted a dog… And now you have one of the best. Take care of each other up there.   I know you will find him… you’ll see him, Will, for he is the old yellow lab with the tail that never, ever stops wagging. Miss you, Willy. Love you like a bus full of labs, Momxo

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  • Where Love Continues

    Wills Little Sun

    Monday, September 7, 2026

    Dear Willy,

    You and I have a new and improved home online! After publishing our story in my memoir I felt that we outgrew my blog so I acquired the most wonderful website designer and she did some website renovations. Same address, just a new, bigger space with a couple of extra rooms so we have some more room to grow. All the letters I wrote to you and posted to my blog are now unpacked and settled into their new room and you’ll see there are some familiar bits that I just couldn’t leave behind. My book, however, needed a room of its own which was the real reason for some renovations. And, because life’s little things bring me so much joy and are a reminder for all of us to slow down, to pause, and to find awe in the little moments I thought it would be super cool to have a room to celebrate and share life’s little blessings.

    For now, Will, I just wanted to welcome you to our new online home sweet home and to let our friends and visitors know that while loveletterstowill.com has a new look and  some new features, at its core it still honours where love has always lived and where it continues, still. 

    As always, my sweet boy, I love you like a Willy bus oozing with love parked in the middle of our new online home sweet home.

    Momxo

    loveletterstowill.com

    Same address. New home. Where love continues. 

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  • How Love Works

    Little Will

    January 31, 2020

    Dear Will,

    Boy, oh boy.  Turning the calendar to not only a new month, and to not only a new year but to a new decade sure magnifies how long it’s been since my worst day ever and how much I miss you still.  I know I will miss you forever, sweet boy… that is just how love works.  The minute to minute, moment to moment, day to day; the ebb and flow of every sunrise and every sunset from days to weeks to months and years just seems like too much to process at times. It still surprises me that a minute can feel like forever and forever can feel like a minute. I guess that, too, is how love works.

    I remember years ago (it doesn’t feel good to even say that) I used to count the days since your passing and when those days went from the hundreds into the thousands I stopped.  I had to stop.  Instead, I focused on all the precious moments and memories. It feels better to recount all the lovely treasured moments and memories instead of counting the days without you.  Perspective.  Whoa.  It can sure change things. Again, staying in the beautiful moments is how love works.

    Perspective is an interesting thing.  It can be profound to say the least. One of my biggest enlightenments and something that has been perhaps the most helpful since your passing was when the boys offered their perspective on grief.  They said, “Mom, Dad, instead of trying to figure out how to live without Will, how about figuring out how to live for him.”  Two words… “FOR Will” instead of “WITHOUT Will”.   What a profound difference it makes.  Those words and that message changed things in such a profound and healthy way. Love is a complicated thing but living in the positive feels so much better than living in the negative. It doesn’t change that you’re still not here, but it sure changes how I choose to live and honour you every minute, moment, day, week, month and year. That, my sweet boy, is also how love works.

    I read recently a post that a grieving mom made after losing her young son – a boy just a little older than you – and her message resonated so deeply within me. She talked about perspective… how the little things in life outweigh the big things.  She said:

    “You arrive one day at a place and look back on your life and realize that the little things in your life, weren’t so little after all.  They were big things. Those random moments spent talking while you make supper or swinging on the back porch in the late afternoon, talking while you went down to pick up the mail, those “little” conversations after school, those “little” messes, those “little” texts, those “little” goodnights shouted across the hall…. those are not so little to someone who is missing the person whose time on this earth was…. too little.

    Losing someone you love instills great perspective when you allow it to.  Appreciate the “little” moments with your loved ones, because one day, you may find those moments were not so little after all.”

    Perspective IS everything. Love works in such magical ways if your heart is open. Good things will come if you let love in. The reason I miss you so much, Will, is because I loved you so deeply. Grief is love upside down and yet still it all comes back to love.

    Will Smiling

    You continue to be my compass, Will.  My barometer for all things good and pure. You are the light in my darkest days, the hand I hold when I’m scared.  To smile and cry in the same breath is love. It’s you. It’s “for” instead of “without”, it’s a whole lot of little things instead of a handful of big things, it’s being better instead of bitter.

    I love you, sweet Will. I always did and I always will.  More than and bigger than a million little buses.  You and I both know that’s how love works.

    Momxo

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  • So Long, May

    will

    Sunday, May 29, 2016

    So Long May

    Dear Will,

    As I turn the calendar to the last days of May I am relieved that 1) I made it and 2) the overwhelming sadness that I associate with May is behind me again for another year. I am often asked if losing you gets easier with time and the answer to that is no, 100% absolute no. It is not one bit easier. There is still a sting, an emptiness, and an ache deep inside that can make it hard to breathe. Still.

    I still wonder every moment how this can happen and why parents sometimes outlive their children when it just should never, ever be. I struggle still with not being able to touch you, to physically see you in your body and believe me, I will miss that forever. Where I do find comfort, and where I seek it is in all of the things and places that I believe you are. I believe it’s you because I can feel you. Sometimes its that feeling of déjà vu and sometimes it’s the way you feel when you think somebody is looking at you from the other side of the room, only there is nobody there… except you.

    I believe you are those little blue butterflies in the spring and the heart-shaped rocks that find their way to my pockets and to my home. I believe you are the magnificent rainbows and double rainbows that wow me, and that you are the very sparkliest snowflakes in every blanket of Willy that falls to the ground. I know that you are the effervescent dewdrops in the trees that a friend of mine says stretch up so high that they must hold up heaven. There have been moments when I’ve said your name out loud, asked if it was you, but knew in my heart that it was. Sometimes it’s the way Finn looks seemingly “through me” and not at me. I’ve seen you in the aura that surrounds the sun and in the middle star of Orion’s Belt as it twinkles so brightly in the night sky. I feel your winks and your pokes, your smiles and your gotcha’s and at the end of the day before I sleep I feel your “I love yous”.

    I promise you, Will, for as long as I am on this side of heaven I will continue to look for all the signs you send to let me know that you are here. I promise that I will never lose hope, or my faith in the magical power that is you and that we refer to as WillPower.

    I love you, little blue. More than ever and anything and a bus.

    Momxo

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  • Those Little Gingerbread Boys

    gingerbread boys

    December 23, 2020

    My dearest Will,

    It seems rather fitting that yesterday, on the 22nd day of the month I decorated the gingerbread boys I somewhat reluctantly baked last week.  Each year since your passing the little gingerbread boys have become a tradition that I set aside time for and that I have always looked forward to. This year with COVID and how it has changed our world I stumbled, wondering at times if it would be worth it, wondering who would eat them all (other than us!), wondering if anyone would really even notice that the “boys” didn’t make it into their little holiday bags ready to be handed out to friends and family as in years past because we’re isolating and not gathering socially due to the pandemic.  And then it hit me – ultimately, it would matter to me and it would matter because of you. It would matter because it has become a tradition born from your passing and not even a world pandemic would stand in the way of those little gingerbread boys and what they mean to me.

    I realized yesterday how much I enjoy the ritual and learned that it really wasn’t any trouble at all, but rather a little labour of holiday love in honor of you. I buried myself at the kitchen table with Christmas carols and warm tea, with little gingerbread boys and piped frosting and little white candy hearts. I thought about our Christmases together and though my mind got stuck on how 12 Christmases just weren’t enough I managed to flip the bitter to sweet and remembered how much fun we packed into the Christmases we did have together.

    It is easy to complain about the busy-ness of the season but for me the days leading up to Christmas were always the best and the busier we were, it seemed the happier we were. The magic would build day by day, even when the magic of Santa became the magic of giving for all of us. After your angel date we adopted some new Christmas traditions because we knew Christmas would never be the same. To keep on as we did would magnify the empty chair, the empty stocking and the achingly absent “To Will, From Us” gifts under the tree.

    Instead we chose to make you the star, the angel, the toque on top of our tree. We made you our morning Santa with socks and pajamas from you to all of us Christmas morning. We still hang your stocking on the mantle amidst all of ours but on Christmas morning it becomes the anchor upon which our Christmas dinner centerpiece sits. We carefully place it in the middle of our dining room table where we light the sparkliest of candles. The last present under the tree is a jigsaw puzzle or a game from you to us – a promised activity that we enjoy doing together. And then there are the coveted gingerbread boys. The boys I am glad I did not leave out this year. Now that they are decorated the world feels a bit right again, even in this crazy and strange world of unknowns and uncomfortable concerns about the coronavirus. Admittedly, I didn’t bake as many this year knowing that I’d eat far too many if they were hanging around the kitchen. There is nothing right about one small family having to eat 10 or so dozen of those little boys… they are small, but…

    I enjoyed our afternoon, Will. Needless to say, I miss you more than ever — more than I did yesterday and the day before and the day before that. I am overjoyed that the little gingerbread boys prevailed and that we have them to enjoy over the holidays. Yesterday I discovered that without them it just wouldn’t feel like Christmas. The tags I included with the little boys in every holiday cookie bag over the years are printed and in the tin — an undeniable reminder that…

    “Before they can be men, they must be boys.”

    And so this is Christmas. And on this side your little light still shines as bright as ever.  I’m told some stars are like that, Willy. In my heart of hearts I know your spirit is with us today and yesterday and tomorrow and on Christmas and everyday. We carry you with us in all that we do.  Your little light is in each of those little gingerbread boys, a reminder that the little boy / the child is alive and well in all of us, if we just believe. 

    I love you, my sweet boy. More than a bus and more than all the little gingerbread boys and men and sugar cookies and milk in Santa’s big belly on Christmas eve.

    Love Momxo xo xo xo

    christmas gingerbread boy
    The handsewn gingerbread boy that Will made with his tiny hands in grade 1
    remains a Christmas treasure.

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  • October Days and Little Boy Arms

    Little Boy Arms
    Little Boy Arms
    October 6, 2013 Dear Willy, Well, here it is again.  October; your birth month and one of the most difficult for me. No month is easy by any means, but October conjures up so many memories of you.  For most of your much-too-short life as soon as I turned the calendar to October the conversations would begin… “Mom, my birthday is in 14 days!”  And in the next breath, “can we plan my birthday party?  How many friends can I invite?  Can they all sleepover?  Ok. Well, can some sleepover?”  Today, remembering these conversations that would begin at the beginning of October every year now make me cry. I think back to that very special day in October 1998; to the 14th day of the month when you made your debut into this world.  You, my youngest son, were pure joy from the moment Dad and I found out that we were blessed with another son.  An easy pregnancy, an easy delivery (easy to say now!?), and such a happy and beautiful baby boy with your blonde curly hair and blue eyes. It was one of the happiest days in my life, for sure.  Having you felt like everyone in my world was now here and that my kitchen table was supposed to have five people occupy the chairs that were tucked in around it.  For the first time, I could honestly say that it felt like my family was complete. I took much pride, and still do, in being a mother to three boys. Little Nan, (papa’s mom and my grandmother) was also a mother of three boys and I always thought it was so special.  And now I, too, was a proud mama bear to three cubs.  One of the things I loved the most about all three of you, was the feel of your little boy arms around my neck and even at 12 ½ your arms, the smallest of the three of you, gave me such comfort. Right up until your angel date, I loved the tuck-me-in goodnight hugs we still shared regularly.  I don’t ever want to forget those hugs, Will, for there is just nothing quite like them. Remembering the joy you brought to all of us on the day you were born and the happiness that you brought to our lives as you grew now feels so empty and when October comes around it is especially heartbreaking. It is like you were stolen from me and I am left now with only memories of you as a boy on the cusp of becoming a teenager and a time you were looking forward to so very much.  Watching your two older brothers navigate through the teenage years gave you insight into the freedoms and privileges that were coming your way; learning to drive, girls, girls, girls, summer jobs and spending money of your own, later curfews and later bedtimes.  You certainly didn’t choose to see the “not so fun” parts like more homework, negotiations with Dad and I that wouldn’t always go as you’d hoped, losing privileges, being grounded, etc.  It was just like you to find the fun parts wherever you were. So, as I watch each of these October days come and go and as your birthday approaches I must continue to find the strength to carry on somehow. I know there will be days when grace will be lost; days where it will take all I have to just get out of bed. And then to my amazement there will be days, too, that I will somehow find a smile, feel you with me, and that I will celebrate having had you for as long as I did, even though it was much, much too short. There is not a day, Will, that I wish the outcome would have been different and that you were here with us saying, “Mom, my birthday is in 14 days!  Can we plan…” I believe it is you giving us these warm and sunny fall days and I am grateful.  I imagine it is your way of giving me those little boy hugs I miss so very much.  Beautiful October days… and little boy arms.  Thank you, Will. I miss you to the moon and love you like a bus. Momxo

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0 Comments

  1. Beautiful Joni. My heart is with you every step of this journey. I love what you have given back to this world through your challenges, your heart is bigger than any other I know. XO

    Reply

      1. Mary, you always know how to make me feel like I’m doing the right thing. Knowing that you support me and walk with me means so much. I just couldn’t let 2017 leave without saying thank you to my sweet boy. He is my “God” and does guide my every decision. But there is always a “but”, an “if only” and that makes me cry. I do know, however, that a big, broken heart is better than a wee, closed one. Love you, sweet friend.

        Reply

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