Dear Josh

Well my poor kiddo, its me again. Up at midnight and thinking about you. The decisions I have struggled with over the last year and a half, and the decisions we have made for you have been excruciating. Loving you is different than it has been for anyone else. You, completely dependent, trusting, innocent, complex, beautiful, and yet also frightening, have had no voice in anything.
This has been torture to your family. the responsibility of doing whats best for you, with you not being able to understand and us having to watch you suffer is a hell in itself.
In the last year you have busted your head open 4 times from headbanging. You now wear a helmet to protect you from yourself. 6 weeks ago you broke your foot doing somersaults while living in that place. Tonight, another patient threw headphones and knocked your tooth out. We had to decide if it was worth the risk of the doctors sedating you, coupled with all your meds, the bleeding, the risks you have of dying, or being on a breathing tube, to attempt to save your tooth. Which was only given a 50/50 chance of being saved. We decided its not worth risking your health or life, and with the luck you have, my son the survivor, there was no question. We weren't chancing it.
A year ago we had to decide the best way to keep you safe. You, God, and we know how much we love you, and how horrible of a dilemma that was. The last several months, again we have had to decide how best to keep you safe. Going against the natural desire we have to bring you home, we have chosen again to protect your life, from yourself and have you remain in a residential treatment facility. We want you here more than anything, but losing you to a permanent injury of some sort, scares me more than anything. Or bringing you home and you not being in any kind of self control, hurting yourself with nowhere to turn, makes the decision a no-brainer. I have to keep you safe.
I know that one day, you will be perfectly healed in heaven, and you will be so blessed with love and the beauty only God can give. And he will give it massively to you, because you son are innocent. An innocent victim to a tormented life of autism and mental illness. God will reward you with the greatest things of heaven, I am sure. And for me, it will be heaven for you to receive those things. And also, for you to have your voice.
I hope that you know in your heart how much I love you. You've changed my life. You ruled my life since the day you were born. I'd walk through fire for you, in fact I think I may have. I would do it all over again Josh, for you deserve love like that more than anyone I know. Sleep well tonight my baby boy. Mama has you in her heart every second of every minute of every day. And if I ever made any wrong choices unintentionally, please forgive me. I have always, always wanted the best for you.