Hello my sweet, precious child. In two days, I'll have made it through all the seasons without you. Honestly, I'm nearly speechless. How can it have been a year already? I sit here and I wonder what it is I want to say to you. What would you want to know? Surely you'd want to hear happy news and about all the joy that has filled our lives. But I'm hard pressed to find any of that in the past year. It's been a blur of minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months. I can't count it all as sorrow, though.
Hattie and James are both another year older. James has his license now and Hattie is a teenager! I think you'd be proud of both of them and how they've handled you being gone. James has been a real rock. Very practical and black and white about it, really. You've gone to Heaven now and you're living the best life there with Jesus. So, we should be happy. I wish it were so simple for me. Hattie lets me cry on her shoulder and squeeze and hold her tight when I've lost it all and can't contain my sobs any longer. Yes, you would really be proud of them.
My wedding day came and went in a blur. We left it planned. I was told again and again, "It's what Olivia would have wanted." But you weren't there.
I've forgiven the boyfriend. I guess I should have started with that. You'd probably want to know that first. I wish I knew what was going on in that car. What led to such stupidity? Why'd you break the rules? Of course I was angry with you, too. The most. But I've let this go. It doesn't matter, really. Now you're gone, anyway, and nothing can bring you back. So, anger truly is pointless.
They held a beautiful candle light vigil for you. I went, but it was hard. You'd be proud of my progress for going to the school at all. Your funeral was pretty, too. All of my cousins and aunts jumped right in to help. They made it beautiful for you. I wrote a eulogy. I read it at the funeral. Somehow I kept it together.
I think your dad is taking it really hard. He's back in Michigan, now, with grandma. I know he misses you, too.
We started a scholarship in your name. The Olivia Novakowski Grace and Grit Scholarship. Hopefully this year we'll be able to award it to the first recipient for what would have been your senior year. We're planning a color run 5k. I think you'd be excited about that.
Some of your friends have reached out to me, to say how special you were. I knew that already, of course. But it sure is great to hear from others about you. It's so rare now that anyone speaks your name except for the immediate family.
Your aunt Kathy really was devastated. I mean, we all were. But she misses you in ways I can't begin to describe.
I'm jumping all over the place. Welcome to my brain on grief. I've devoured several books about grief and the loss of a child. Went to a support group called GriefShare. It was mostly older men and women who lost their spouses, though. I felt really out of place. I went to a bereaved parents retreat at the While We're Waiting ministry in Arkansas. It was an interesting weekend. I think I should have gone by myself, though. But there were other parents who lost their kids, some more than one. I can only begin to imagine the pain they carry, since I know what losing just one is like.
I rest a lot. Okay, I sleep a lot. I don't want anyone but your brother and sister around me most of the time. I appreciate my time with Kathy and your other aunts when I can get it. I do visit granny every weekend. We say we just don't know how much time she's got left now that she's 93. And oh, how in the depths of my heart I am jealous to know that she will most likely be reunited with you before I will. She certainly misses you and I bet that will be a fantastic hug when you see her.
Momo and Pawpaw were there for me right away. They're always just a phone call away. And sometimes I take them up on it and I yell and scream about the unfairness of it all. It goes without saying they miss you, too. We all miss you.
I guess this probably isn't the letter you'd like to get, if I could really send it. But it's my truth. I'm shattered by your death. I try to cling to my faith, but my trust in God really took a hit. How can I now trust the one that let you die? I get it, everything for the greater good, but do you know how much that hurts to hear? How can anything about your death be good? But I know you left a mark on so many people and I bet you led some to Jesus. You sure lived out that purpose. Your faith was beautiful. I'm trying to trust God, and I'm sure that it's Him that's holding me together through all of this.
Man, what was that even like? Being in the presence of God? Seeing Jesus for the first time and hugging him. The love you must feel!
I don't want you sad. I don't say any of these things to bring you down. I'm just not okay. Everyone says that one day I will be. And I know that's true, at least in the very end when I get to Heaven to see you, again. But I imagine I'll learn to carry this grief. Maybe I will become better instead of bitter. Oh, I doubt you even have time to worry over Earthly things. I'm sure the time there is so much different. Maybe it's only been an instant since you got there, or maybe it's been years. Either way, I can't wait to hear all about it from you one day.
I'm going to keep showing up down here, somehow. Loving Hattie and James as hard as I can. Maybe I'll be a better mother for them than the version y'all got before you left. I can only hope.
I wanted to honor you somehow on your Heaven day. No one wants to say celebrate the day you died, but really, I bet that was one marvelous celebration walking into Heaven. I know that was the best day of your life; the worst day of mine. It's going to be tough, I know that. I won't be alone. We will remember you and talk about you. I hope there are laughs and smiles, and not just tears.
I guess that's enough from this side of Heaven. Maybe next year will be a letter filled with more joyous things. Until then, I love you Livvy Lou. I miss you.
Mom
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