My life is that of a double task~ living my daily life while always wishing Jamie was in it, not the spirit of the innocent boy but all the iterations over the past 24 years, and who that would have made him today at 30-year-old Jamie. At 30 years old, I could imagine you all grown up. Your hair is short. You still have the same smile and the beautiful hug, but you’re a family man now. You have two kids, a wife, a dog. You run a corporation or a business? You finished college. You got your MBA. You are making a lot of money. I can imagine you a surfer, all you do is surf, smoke pot, hang out with chicks and dudes but don’t ever want to get married or have kids, just love the easy life of a beach bum. I can imagine you, Jamie, being a very devout Buddhist living in a monastery, practicing, being in the present moment and stopping every 15 minutes when the bell rings. You are so centered, and say that Buddha teaches best about always being in the present moment and loving everybody. You live simply and try to make a very light footprint on the earth. I imagine you, Jamie, living in my basement, unable to work, because of some mental health or physical health problem that you developed in your early teens that you have not been able to overcome. You try to keep up your spirit, but you get down a lot. You play a lot of video games have a full world inside the internet. All these versions of you in some multiverse can be true. But in my universe, you left your body at five years and 11 months, even though today is your birthday anniversary, I didn’t get to see years six through 30 of you in your body no matter how much time passed. That still hurts. That still feels like I was cheated and that you were cheated and that we were cheated, and that the universe is not fair. I know it was a car crash, maybe preventable, but certainly not on purpose. I know that none of these scenarios are in this universe where I have to live. I know that in this version of life your body left 24 years and one month ago and I know that through Jamie’s Joy, I have been able to celebrate who you were and who you are now and share your spirit with the world- the spirit of love, joy, peace and connection live on in Jamie’s Joy, live on in the sunflower and the butterflies seen and dimes found. It lives on through your book, a street named Jamie’s Way, it lives on through the events, it lives on and on. It lives on through all those that come in contact with you through an activity or the website or a picture that they have on their mantle. For them it is a beautiful tribute, they sense your spirit and you live on. But what doesn’t live on is you being alive as a living being here in my life, and all that would bring with it. No matter what circumstance, what universe might have shown up, I would have wanted to live that time with you. And while I know it was an accidental car crash that took you away from me, the only way that I can stay close to you now is by crying and writing and honoring and remembering my beautiful boy that I had for ONLY five years and 11 months, which was not and will never be long enough. AND I would have still wanted those Five years and eleven months, even if I knew it means pain for the rest of my days, which has now been twenty four years and one month. I miss you son, I wanna “jale tu palo.” Te amount para siempre. I love you and I miss you everyday Jamie, and I will always love you and miss you until we meet again~ Mama
©Elene Bratton, 2026
