Michelle Wilbur holds her son Tobie in the parlor of their house in Fayetteville (photo by Jason Klaiber).
Fayetteville family’s ‘letters to heaven’ brought to Wailing Wall
JASON KLAIBER
STAFF WRITER
To those who ask the number of children Michelle Wilbur has, she still tells them seven.
On Aug. 26, 2017 Wilbur gave birth prematurely to one-pound fraternal twins.
The next day her son Jackson, the younger of the two by one minute, died in the newborn intensive care unit at Crouse Hospital, the result of burst lungs.
Tobie, the other twin, spent the ensuing five months in Crouse before being released for two weeks and then airlifted to Upstate University Hospital, where he stayed until this past December.
Doctors performed three separate brain surgeries on Tobie. In addition to experiencing several strokes and impaired vision, he had developed hydrocephalus, a build-up of excess fluid in the brain’s ventricles.
“He was not supposed to survive,” Wilbur said.
Along the way, in March of last year, Wilbur’s mother fell into a coma and soon after lost her roughly 20-year battle with liver disease.
During that stretch, Wilbur and her family split time between their current home in Fayetteville, their former home in Massena and the Ronald McDonald House Charities.
A 37-year-old single mother, Wilbur also raises her daughter Gretchen, son West and adopted identical twins Natalie and Corinne. Her eldest daughter, Marissa, is currently away at college.
Wilbur, who previously served on the board of directors for the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, now looks after her children full-time.
“Right now I’m just kind of taking it day by day,” Wilbur said. “I like to have things well-set, and they’re not, and I’m having to live trusting each day is going to be OK, and the next day is going to be OK.”
As a form of healing, Wilbur manages to set aside several hours a week for writing letters to Jackson and her mother, all of them marked with the destination “heaven.”
She began this practice the September immediately following her son’s death.
“It was just natural for me to start writing,” Wilbur said. “For me to be able to write to them makes me feel like they’re still here.”
She also puts a return address on the ones sent to her son, who she affectionately calls “Jack.”
“It sounds weird, but I always thought at least he’d know where to come back,” Wilbur said.
Usually situating herself in the parlor of her Fayetteville residence, she writes about how much she misses her departed loved ones and inquires into their well-being. Sometimes she’ll share parts of her day. Other times she’ll question life.
Her letters, written in cursive, range in length from half a sheet of paper to multiple pages. Depending on the week, she’ll finish two or three letters to Jackson and at least one to her mother. Her middle children also write letters when they can.
Starting late last year, the post office started returning the Wilbur family’s letters, each one deemed undeliverable for containing an improper mailing address.
Wilbur, who belongs to East Side Moms of Syracuse on Facebook, posted on the group’s wall in early November explaining her situation.
She asked if anyone knew heaven’s address, never imagining she would really get an answer.
One woman suggested Wilbur mail her letters to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Another member sent her two international stamps.
The very next day, in the check-out line at a local T.J. Maxx, Mindy Epstein of the Fayetteville area overheard Wilbur conversing with Natalie about their situation and the idea of mailing the letters to the Wailing Wall. Epstein mentioned she herself had lost a child and that her son Ryan was heading to Jerusalem for a 10-day Hebrew school field trip this month.
“Life is so weirdly intertwined,” Wilbur said. “There’s not just happenstance.”
Upon speaking with Ryan, Mindy messaged Wilbur that her son would personally deliver her entire collection of letters to the Wailing Wall, effectively saving her hundreds of dollars.
“It’s very emotional for me,” Wilbur said. “That her son was willing to take my letters was amazing. I was completely flabbergasted.”
Wilbur said the gesture restored her faith in humanity, calling it “selfless.”
“It’s one of those things that I just kinda marvel at that it happened,” David Hinshaw, Epstein’s husband, said.
Using the international stamps gifted to her, Wilbur mailed one letter written to her son and one to her mother. She gathered together the hundred or so remaining letters, sealed them in envelopes and handed them over earlier this month.
“It was very hard for me to let go of those letters,” Wilbur said. “There’s something very personal about turning over your thoughts.”
Wilbur said she doesn’t know anyone else embarking on a trip to Jerusalem anytime soon. Regardless, she said she will continue writing letters.
“I’ll have to buy stock in international stamps now,” she said.
Aside from the letters she writes, Wilbur channels her energy through painting nature scenes. She has further coped with Jackson’s passing by setting out a basket for him on Easter and filling his stocking for Christmas.
“It’s really hard to explain the loss of a child,” Wilbur said.
Her own mother lost a son, Brian, suddenly and without explanation when he was four months old. Wilbur said the last conversation she had with her mother, which took place last fall in a Canton park, concerned the connection between Jackson and Brian.
“In some aspects she helped me to understand how to grieve Jackson,” Wilbur said. “I know people have different views on what heaven is, and for me, it’s very comforting just to think about my mom and son together.”
