Katey,

There are so many things I wish I could’ve told you before you went. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been going through the cycle of being angry, feeling hopeless, and depressed. I see our family falling apart since you’ve been gone. I’ve been mad because of how you did it, there was no thought put in to it, just a drugged pull of a trigger. I’ve been mad because you left behind your four year old daughter. You left her motherless, just like you had been for most of your life. I don’t think it’s what you wanted, in fact I know that’s not what you wanted, and I’m sad because I know it happened because you were scared. You felt so alone in that single moment.

We all have survivors guilt over here in a sense. Dad’s blaming himself for not locking the doors to the house. I’m blaming myself for not calling to tell you Happy Mother’s Day earlier that morning. I thought to myself “I’ll call her tonight”, completely taking for granted your timing here on earth.

Telling your daughter, my niece, that day that mommy was in heaven was the hardest day of my life.

I’m thankful I didn’t go in to the room and say goodbye to you. I didn’t want my last memory of you to be that. I’ll hold on to the last memory of you eating chicken fingers on the porch and your daughter flying her kite as we talked about life and the little things.

Katey my world has been flipped upside down since you’ve been gone. I hear your daughter talk day and night about how she loved her mommy, and the little things mommy used to do. I hold her so much closer and pray she never feels the way you did in that moment. I pray when she’s older and finds out what really happened to mommy that she never doubts your love for her. Katey, I just wish I could hug you or simply hear you call my name from downstairs one more time.
I’m trying to be strong for everyone else, but it leaves me alone at night with no one to be strong for me.

This letter to you is all over the place and I have a thousand more things to say, but for now this will do. I’ll continue to take care of your little girl and never let her forget you Katey. You are forever so loved.