Your 4th birthday just passed. This year has been especially difficult for me. I don't want to feel sad or anything negative but I do and I just can't help it. I miss you more than I could ever even begin to put into words. It's just this extremely deep rooted feeling to the core of my soul. I miss you every moment of everyday. I regret having you be adopted and it tortures me nearly every waking, and sometimes sleeping, moment. I wish I had found the resources or means to have felt like I could have kept and raised you. I wish that someone would have believed in me or had faith in me to parent you. I felt like the world was against me and like the best thing I could do for you and to protect you was to allow you to be adopted. I felt like I couldn't be the mom that you deserved or give you the things in life you should have. I lost faith in myself as not only a person but as a mother - specifically your mother. I want you to also know that although I did have custody of your sister Lailah at the time that she was not living with me and that I only was getting visits with her a few times a week. It wasn't a legal thing or a battle it was just the way things were at the time. My mom (your grandmother I guess) she made me feel as if I weren't good enough to be a mother at all - to either you or Lailah. She constantly belittled me and put me down as a person and as a mother. She kept your sister while I was not permitted to live with them. She threatened to try to take custody of Lailah from me multiple times. When I had finally gotten Lailah and was caring for her on my own when she was 4 - my sister (your aunt I guess) had even called DCYF on me to spite me - in attempt to hurt me to take Lailah from me for no reason other than to hurt me. It's no excuse but I want you to have a deeper understanding of how life was for me at the time and shortly after. It took me over a year after having you to have Lailah fully in my care and even then we lived with my dad (your papa I guess). Lailah is 7 now and your little brother Noel is 1 and we are still currently living with my dad. Life isn't a cakewalk and we struggle but we're getting by. And we miss you. Lailah asks about you often and we talk and wonder about you and how you're doing. We hope things are going okay for you and that you'll have a life that you won't hate or be angry at me for. I just hope that at some point you're told how much I love you. I check in with your mom every single month. I ask how you're doing. I get pictures and your mom tells me about you and her perception on how you're doing. I really truly only wanted what was best for you, Bennett. And I felt at that time that I couldn't be that for you.
I love you, I truly do. My little puzzle piece.
