Dear Joey,
Today I read a book to David called Have You Filled a Bucket Today? I really like the book. It says, “Everyone carries an invisible bucket. You feel very happy and good when your bucket is full, and you feel very sad and lonely when your bucket is empty. You fill a bucket when you show love to someone, when you say or do something kind, or give someone a smile. You dip into a bucket when you make fun of someone, when you say or do mean things. When you fill someone’s bucket, you fill your own bucket too! And, at the end of each day, ask yourself, “Did I fill a bucket today?” Your brother likes this book too. Then I read him If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and he said, “I will give a mouse a cookie today, then his bucket will be full!”
But Joey, everyday Mommy carries two invisible buckets. One is full. It’s full of gratitude, love, bless, positive thoughts, kindness and humanity people show us along the way. It’s a beautiful and sparkling bucket. Yet the other one is empty. It’s so empty. Mommy is trying very hard to fill the empty bucket with all the wonderful things from the full bucket. But I fail. The anger and hate toward the hideous disease that takes you away from me, the hopelessness to keep you from fading away, the very true fact that EVERY day 7 children die in this country from this disease, leaving their moms and dads an empty bucket rest of their life…All these keep me from filling that empty bucket.
Dear Joey, I wish I could be like you carrying one full bucket, always. No matter how much disease has spread in your body, you hope. No matter how exhausted your body is, you smile. No matter how unfair life is, you don’t complain. How? How do you keep that empty bucket away?
After I’m typing the letter to you, there will be a long night, again. A day without you passed. Just today, like all the other day, in this country, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer and 7 children die from it. There are holes forever on these parents’ hearts and they carry an empty bucket for the rest of their life. Yet the rest of the world is not aware. Mommy knows only when the rest of the world wakes up and we together bring that shocking number down, only when that happens, my empty bucket will be filled up. It will take a while to fill up. But mommy will try.
Dear Joey, I miss you.
Good night dear Joey, and see you soon.
Mommy
1/14/2015