Dear Grace,
I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you. Don’t think for one second it’s because I’m mad or that I didn’t want to see you guys. I miss you all so much it hurts to think about. Last night I cried for a long time about my decision. I just feel so at war with myself; I love you all so so so much, but I love Grandma and Grandpa too, and I don’t want to feel like I have to take one or the other’s side. I wish, more than anything I’ve ever wanted, that we could all be a family again. But the hurt we all feel is still healing, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of seeing you again, and then having things not work out.
It would be too hard on all of us, and I feel that we just need more time. But at least in the time that we take to heal, we can take comfort in the knowledge that we’ll always have our families. Grandma and Grandpa and I will always have each other, and you and Garrison and your Mom will always have each other. And please always know that even though I feel I can’t come to see you just yet, that I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, and nothing will ever change that.
Well, I’d better move on to a lighter subject or I’ll start bawling again here! How was your Christmas? Did you get lots of cool presents from Santa? Are you and Garrison fighting over all the toys now? Christmas was weird here at home. It’s the first year we haven’t had kids in the house. Oh, it was wonderful, of course, we had a wonderful time together, and we gave each other a lot of silly gifts.
I gave Grandma and Grandpa a shower-gel dispenser that’s shaped like a nose and squirts out green shower gel when you push on it, and I laughed my head off when they actually installed it in their shower. I have to wonder if they feel any cleaner after using it? Yuck! I don’t want to think about that. As a joke, they gave me a poster of (and I apologize if you’re a fan of this) Justin Beiber! AAARRRGG! I’m sorry, but I despise the Beiberhead! Then Grandpa taped it over my bed when I wasn’t home, and when I was getting ready for bed when I saw it. Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep with that thing staring down at me, so I had to tear it off my ceiling and stuff it in the hall closet. I’m still contemplating drawing a mustache and goatee and goofy glasses on it with a sharpie. We’ll see…hehe…
One cool thing they got me was a toy claw machine. You know the machine that has the claw that drops and grabs the prizes out of the machine? Yeah, well, they found a mini one for me, so now I keep all my candy in it, and every time I want a treat, it’s a thrilling adventure to get a piece of candy out of it, haha.
Brittney and Brianna are both gone from Sonic now, and I miss them like crazy! It’s so weird not having them around anymore, and Bob is hiring new people to be night managers. He hired his nephew, and I’m already wary of him because he keeps making googoo eyes at me. Well okay, he hasn’t been making googoo eyes at me, but he has taken an interest in me, and I’m not sure how that’s going to play out in the near future here. I just hope he’ll keep his eyes and his paws OFF.
Max seems to be getting older rapidly. He spends all of his time hidden away in his cubby holes sleeping. He can hardly hear anymore, so if you want to find him you have to wander the house until you see him and then go touch him to wake him up, because he can’t hear when you call for him. His sight is going too. Oh, he can still see all right, but his depth perception is in the toilet. He can’t even judge how close to get when he tries to put his paws on my lap. Poor dumb dog. I hope he makes it until Kurt gets home.
Kurt’s doing great on his mission. He got to call home for Christmas and, oh my gosh! I couldn’t believe how well he can speak Spanish now! It’s kind of scary because he sounds just like a Mexican when he’s speaking Spanish! We asked him to bear his testimony to us in Spanish and he just went on and on and on…it was so cool to hear how well he’s doing. So far he’s baptized seven or eight people into the church, and it’s been amazing to see the people he’s touched and influenced. Grandma’s been keeping a blog for him of all the letters he sends home, and Kurt got an email from a lady none of us had ever met before. She explained that she had stumbled across his blog on accident while web-surfing one day, and that as she read it, his letters helped answer some questions she had been struggling with in the church, and that he had helped change her life. It’s amazing to see how our words and actions can so deeply affect the lives of others when we’re living the way we’re supposed to.
I know he’d want me to send you his love, and I know he misses you a ton. He asks about you and your mom and Garrison in his letters to me, and hopes that you are all doing well. This is random, but I guess I’ll throw this in there too, but I just want you to know that Kurt, Grandma, Grandpa and I all pray for you every night. We just pray that you are safe and protected from harm and accident and that you will succeed and excel in all that you do.
You know, I’ve always watched movies and read books where people talk about how not a single day goes by that they don’t think about someone that they love that they’ve been separated from, and I’ve always thought that that wasn’t possible. But you know, now I know that it absolutely is possible. I think about you every single day. Every time I used your comb to part my hair, or when I see your light-up magnet you left on my bathroom mirror, or when I find that pair of your jeans with holes in the knees and the heart drawn in pen on them in my closet. There’re pictures of you on our computer screen and in our decorations and on my mirror. There’s the peacock feather you gave me that’s mounted on my wall in my room, and there’s the Sims games you left on my computer.
And of course, there’s always the thought of your smiling face and sweet laugh that comes to mind whenever even the faintest hint of you enters my subconscious. There’s another thing I’d like you to know. Last year, I was in a creative writing class at school, and I wrote a poem about you. Every single person who has read it or heard it has been personally touched by the words. Josh’s girlfriend Jessica cried when she read it, and everyone in my class loved it. But you know, it wasn’t the poem that was so special. It’s you. You wrote every line in that poem with your smiles, your laughs, your attitude, your courage, your strength, your love and friendship to me…the only thing I did was put it down on paper. Someday I’ll share it with you, so that you can know how special you are to me.
I love you so much, Grace, and I wish you could know how much I miss you and love you. Be good, and remember who you are.
Love always,
Katie Jo
P.S. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away.
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