Jedgar,

Did you watch it? I wanted you to watch it before I explained it, so now I’ll explain it, even though I guess you can guess what happened. Somehow the date we left for England was also the date of the Walk to Remember — the walk we do every year with the McNays and all those other people who had a kid who they really loved with their whole hearts who had to go earlier than anyone wanted. I’ve told you about this. We remember Ashley Mary Jane and write notes and let them go on balloons and listen to people doing speeches about being parents who lost babies, and everyone cries and sings and eats sandwiches and eventually starts to have fun, even though it feels both right and wrong to have fun when you’re at a party to say good-bye again to some kids who died when they shouldn’t have.

I felt so terrible that we were in England for that, because it’s all they get, the McNays. That’s all that’s left of Ashley Mary Jane, letting go of balloons and remembering her. It sort of feels like we all have to do it at once, so the power of that will somehow reach her. That sounds totes ridic, of course, but it’s how it feels.

So we made a different arrangement this year and did our walk at the cemetery near the village where Ruby lives. I mean, obviously the McNays weren’t there, or any of the other people, but we Skyped it to them even though the time zones were off, so it was the morning for them. We got the perfect rainbow balloons too. Balloons are just better in England! Like everything! Different and better! (And — if you can believe it — specially made so that when they burst, the pieces aren’t harmful to wildlife, they just disintegrate!) Everyone wrote a note to Ashley Mary Jane that said “Thank you, Ashley Mary Jane, for Ruth’s heart” and things like that. And we all sent them off at once, to the other side of the world. I bet she felt our love more than ever this year in heaven or wherever.

The one bit that I only showed you, on the camera, is that I also wrote a note and sent it off on a different balloon. Only one balloon, all by itself, a blue one. I wrote, “Forgive.” It felt like it meant something, even though I don’t know who it was meant for. All of us, I guess.

I don’t think anyone saw but you. And that’s OK. It wasn’t for anyone else. Just me. But I knew you’d get it. And when that blue balloon floated up next to all those colorful ones, Jedgar, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was the most amazeballs thing EVER. In a weird way, it was like everything bad and hard and horrible that I’d been feeling floated up with that balloon. I guess, technically, that should make me feel lighter, but I felt more stuck down to the ground than ever. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

See you in a couple of days!

Ruth