Dear Cooper,
I miss you. It is impossible to explain how broken my heart is without you here. I am so, so sorry that I did not understand what was going on. Moms are supposed to know these things. I look at your pictures in disbelief every day. The pain of never seeing you again, and how you must have felt that night, is just incomprehensible to my brain. I talk to you in my mind a lot. I pretend I see you standing outside the front door by the wind chimes that were sent for you. And I hope every day that if I pray hard enough, if I will it hard enough, if I am nice enough, somehow you will come back. My brain and heart just can’t function knowing that you are gone. I doubt they ever will—the hole, the crack, is just too big.
I wish you could have seen yourself through everyone else’s eyes, Coopie. Everyone knew what a sweetheart you were with those big eyes and kind disposition. You were “famous” from an early age, as the “baby in the backpack” at all the soccer games that Dad and I coached for CJ. You were quite well known throughout the soccer community and helped coach from the backpack as we coached CJ’s and then Carse’s soccer teams. It was no surprise that you were an excellent soccer player from the start of your soccer debut at five years old, and that was the sport you truly loved and played through college.
You were talking at an early age and started so many sentences when you were two years old with, “Actually…” You loved going to the “movieator” and having “mintens” at Abuelo’s. When you started first grade, the teacher wanted to have you tested for the gifted program. Dad and I weren’t sure that was a good idea, since Carse and CJ were already in it, and we didn’t want you to feel any pressure. So we just told you that you were going to do some fun activities with a teacher. But you literally aced those three tests with a 99, a 99++, and another 99++. I had to ask the gifted teacher what this even meant, and she told me to get you in any activity that you wanted to do. You were off the charts smart, literally, and got the nickname “Baby Einstein.”
You held yourself to such high academic standards—you absolutely hated busy work in class and always wanted a challenge to learn more. You announced during testing one year that you were reading the dictionary while the class had to be quiet until everyone was done testing. You loved talking in different language accents and even convinced Grace that you were one of Santa’s elves because of how much you loved powdered sugar.
And then there was the “pickle” phase that never really ended—always telling everyone that they were a pickle, or including it however you could fit it in. I about had a heart attack when you wanted to build your own computer for your ninth-grade birthday, but that was silly of me, because like everything else, it was perfect. You graduated sixth in your class out of 400 kids and, of course, chose Aerospace Engineering for your major.
Engineering had definitely been on your mind for years, because you were always building things. We would be at Starbucks, and you were making a tower with their bananas by the cash register. We went to the diner while visiting Nanny and Poppy, and you made a tower of the coffee creamers. You would take all of the silverware at a table and try to stack them. You stayed home sick one day in high school, and I came home to a tower of Tupperware when you were feeling better and got bored. You even stacked all of the Rummikub tiles at Thanksgiving 2021, and we bet a tequila shot. Yes, remember—I lost, and I had the shot.
Your kind, quiet demeanor attracted the best of friends—Buckley in preschool, Colton in kindergarten, and then you met Ethan in first grade. We kept hearing all about Ethan every day, although we had not met him yet. And you two even got in trouble once or twice for being silly in class. We finally met Ethan at his birthday party in December that year, and you were fast friends—in class together, played soccer together, graduated high school together, and were roommates your freshman year in college. Jonathan, Jacob, Cash, and Austin were also great friends through high school and college. You had a group of friends, and you all had so much in common, and they all could care less that you were the quiet one.
Then you met Chase at college in your fraternity and had another incredible friend. So even though you thought you needed to be more chatty and social, the best of friends were still finding you.
The funny thing is, Coopie, anyone who was around you knew that you could get quite crazy. Do you remember the 7:30 pm Cooper time when you just seemed to get wound up like crazy every night? Your second-grade sleepover for your birthday, where you didn’t even go to sleep? How crazy you were on the sixth-grade California field trip when your teacher said she laughed at this side of you that she had never seen at school? But you were obviously being an incredibly kind person to everyone all of the time, because I remember a mom calling in fifth grade to invite you to her daughter’s birthday party. I had never heard the little girl’s name before and asked you about her. You told me that she didn’t have many friends, but you just always tried to be nice to her. You were clearly doing a stellar job of being kind and including her.
Dad and I were so excited when you took the job at the university when you graduated. It was always so hard not having you, Carse, or CJ here, and the fact that we had you here made everything so much better. We were obviously misled by your busyness, as I am guessing you did that to keep your brain occupied, much like I do now to be able to handle the pain. You were working, going to the gym, teaching yourself how to play the guitar, golfing, relearning French, taking flight lessons to get your pilot’s license, and hanging out with Abby and her friends.
It always made me laugh that it took Amy and me so long to get you and Abby connected as friends, but once again, Abby was a gem of a friend and misses you so much too. The year we had you here was just perfect. I even told you how much I had missed you when you were only gone five days on your trip to Florida in September. You said you had really missed me too. I loved seeing you every day, and it was crazy how hard those five days were with you gone. But then less than three weeks later, I couldn’t even fathom how I would go on without you here. I still don’t know. I go through the motions like everyone else. I know you understood how much we all loved you, but it wasn’t enough.
Snoopy follows Dad around most of the time these days. You sure were good at picking out “Rowdy” to join our family. When we come in from pottying, he stops underneath your wind chimes and looks intently at the space. That’s why I think you are there somewhere—I think Snoopy knows. When CJ and Carse come, Snoopy tends to want to go out in the front yard looking for you. He about broke my heart even more at Christmas because he wanted to be out front so much. He knows you should be here, and he kept looking.
Coopie, I know you know that our family of six is everything to me. I know you knew that. That’s why I know you had to be in so much pain, because I know you knew that you being gone would figuratively “kill” me. I do still love teaching—I think I am pretty good at it—but my brain has to compartmentalize each day so that I can try and give my best in the classroom. I have several teacher friends who have lost sons. They understand. One of them says her brain has to have different rooms, so that she can cope with things. I thought it was a good analogy. I have to close your door at school if I can, so that I can function for the children. The door is usually wide open on the way to school, though, and also as soon as I walk out of school. I cry in the car a lot. The door also cracks open at school, and I just do the best I can. I have your picture in a frame by itself so that I can look at you during the day. I was afraid it would make me cry, since I do that most of the time when I look at your pictures. But instead, it makes me feel like you are there watching me. I bought a bracelet with a little tiny “C” on it. My fingers rub the “C” a lot as I think about you.
As we come up on the one year anniversary of enduring life without you, I wanted to think of some of the happy memories I have of you. I know there are plenty of people that would be happy to listen to me talk about you, but it’s hard. It is all hard. I still can’t talk about you without crying.
While I know we weren’t the best singers when you were in eighth grade, we would sing One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” in the car on the way to soccer practice and games. I still sing it like you are there with me when it comes up on my playlist.
I think Aunt Krissie or Cousin Kristi sent me a song from Scott Calum, You Are the Reason.1 It wasn’t written for a mom losing a child, but I play it a lot in the car, listen to it, and cry. The phrases in the song say it so well.
I would, I’d give anything just to be with you again.
I love you, Coopie.
Love,
Mom
- Scott, Calum. “You Are the Reason.” Only Human, Capitol Records, 2018. ↩︎
Endure 