Dear Kaela,

My sweet child that lives within me forever, I hope you forgive me when I forget you’re still with me. Time has aged my body, but hasn’t yet ever weakened your spirit. The one that burns love into my heart even when the world tries to say it is too bright. The only way to live is to put out the fire! The smoke will only hurt your eyes! I know it is only a lie. How could I ever give up what I love the most about you? What fills my memories and thoughts still, time and time again? In my heart, I will always remember once I was you, a child, who lived in her imagination.

You built worlds of magic and impossibilities and shouldered grief and sorrow into beautiful daydreams. What great times you had too, finding dreams of the world. To see the stories in your mind’s eye. Every book and movie you could never look away from until the story was finished. Stories turned inspiration for your own, spending hours dreaming before you were even asleep.

I still read the words you wrote all that time ago, diaries upon diaries that fill my nightstand in every home I’ve ever lived in. The world wanted you to feel alone, but how could you? With a pen and pencil, you opened portals to the realities of characters that would never leave you. Created with an imagination that always kept you company, an imagination that you cleverly snuck into the real world. Through dolls and play pretend your stories were as real as the hands that held them. Remember how you organized your bookshelf? Just like your favorite movie, The Secret World of Arrietty, you created space and pathways for the little people to walk through. You left treats and trinkets for them to borrow forever.

Never alone did you feel when you knew the world held more than the eyes could see. Never unloved will you feel when I see you’re still with me. I love you again and again as I write, seeing your eyes peek through mine. You’re showing me that the same world of magic and impossibilities will never leave me. My eyes were never harmed by your smoke. My sight is only gifted by its path, a path to the worlds you’ve created, to the heavens, and beyond. All only exist by your fire. You give me strength to keep the imagination alive, in a world where make-believe is only just that. I give you love to keep you safe, in a world that tells me to give you away. Never will I, my sweet child, never will I give my imagination away.