November 2021

Dear Rykelan,

I didn’t realize how many of my photos of you were taken in the dining room. It makes sense in retrospect. Sitting in your high chair was the only time you were reliably still enough for photos. (Doesn’t hurt that you made the cutest faces while eating, too!)

And the feet on the table! You still did that when you were almost four. I tried not to laugh and encourage you, but you were so sneaky about it. The only way to really get you to keep your feet down was to threaten you with a date with the nail clipper. You hated getting your nails trimmed, that no matter how gentle I was.

Your obsession with books really started to take hold at this point. You were always holding one.

You even modeled with some of my books. I couldn’t post any of the ones with your face in them, though. We weren’t allowed to post any photos of you while you were alive. That’s such a strange sentence to type. It still doesn’t feel fully real that you’re gone. You’re not supposed to be gone. You’re supposed to live a long, beautiful life. You were supposed to grow up and take the bus to kindergarten. You were supposed to play sports and read chapter books. You were supposed to grow into an angsty teen.

I wonder if you’d still like pizza. You loved it when you were little.

You and Daddy are so silly here.

Love you. Miss you.

-Mom