Dear Matthew

My heart hurts so badly knowing you are leaving us. I have had an incredible experience of getting to raise you for the past four weeks. It has been trying for me at times, but completely amazing and gratifying to hear you point at a circle and say "circle." To reach for your Big Red Barn book (something that I can recite word for word now) and say goodnight to all of the animals on the farm. To tell the waitress as TRex every time she filled our glasses that "I'm scared of diner." (You're word for dino.) To wake up on Sunday mornings and snuggle under the blanket with me watching television.



You are an incredible human being that is so smart and so thirsty for information and for life. You walked into your first tumbling class scared and uncertain and clinging to me for comfort. By the next week you were laughing and jumping and doing frontward rolls all on your own. I was so proud of you.



I hope you feel when you are with us how much you are loved. Your Uncle Guy and Aunt Liz would go to the ends of the earth for you and I mean it. I wish that I could keep you forever but I know you have to be with your daddy. I will think of you every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to sleep and wonder what book you are picking out and how many kisses you requested before sleeping. You will absolutely always have a room at our house and a place in our hearts.





You are precious and smart and funny and loving and caring and honest and I appreciate you and your existence on this planet and am thankful for it. I love you so much.