Dear Isaac,

Due to unfortunate circumstances, we never got the pleasure of meeting. I’m your big sister, Laney. You have no idea how much I wish you could be alive, well, and a happy baby brother to me and your two sisters, Addyson and Sophie. I wish we could have met, so you could have grown up with a bratty older sister to pester and steal the TV remote from.

Although growing up with two baby sisters was heaven on earth because it meant twice the clothes, twice the nail polish, and twice the food during Thanksgiving, I can’t help but imagine what our lives would have been like if you would have lived. If you would have been closer to David than Addy is. If you would have liked superheroes or trucks. If you would have loved Molly just as much as we did or if you and Adler would have been close. Who you would have chosen through the divorce because let’s be honest, we all took sides. Maybe David wouldn’t have hit our mom, or maybe one more baby would have made our mom realize it was time to leave a lot earlier than we did. Maybe you would have played hockey and mocked me for figure skating. Maybe you would have been different than most boys and liked barbies, dresses, playing with my makeup, and shared being a feminist with me.

After all this time, and without even meeting you, I still feel such a connection to you because once upon a time, you were a human being living inside our mom soon to be born and become a little brother to one big sister who had a whole lot of sass and love for kitties… kinda like now, so not much has changed. Eventually, you would have been a big brother to two more little sisters who equally have as much sass.

I don’t know what our life would have been like with you in it, but I do know our mom would have loved being a mom to a son because raising 3 daughters tends to be tiring. Maybe none of us will ever understand why God took you from our family when he did, but maybe it was for the best. You didn’t have to see or endure any of the pain we all went through with our father. Still though, after all these years, and years after this, I’ll question what you would have looked like and what you would have sounded like or if you would have been mean or nice, or had green eyes or blue eyes, or if you would have been best friends with papaw kinda like I am.

You’d be fourteen this year. That’s fourteen years of pain. Fourteen years of wondering how it happened or why. Fourteen years of not hearing someone yell your name when it was time for dinner. Fourteen years of no you. We don’t ever talk about you, but we all know what you were to us and we each have our own definition of what that is. We all have our own definitions of how we would have loved you, or how we still love you... despite never getting to meet you.