August 23, 2009

Dear Mom,

It's been one year and seventeen days since last I saw you tucked in your hospital bed. A year of tremendous change that has filled my heart with joy that takes me to the tops of the mountains, and sorrow so deep it felt I'd fallen to caves far beneath the earth. Some days I've felt you guiding the sunlight my way, and other days I've felt as if the sun had gone entirely missing, blacked out by the pain of your absence. I've had about a month now of really, really hard times, missing you like I did near the beginning when I thought I would melt for the ache of your loss.

Our renter moved out, and now after a full year of having you gone, I am suddenly faced with your absence. He filled your space and made it his own, and now that it's gone all I can see is you're not here. Going down the stairway I see the holes where nails hung your many pictures of family. I know which hung where and whose face shined at you every time you navigated the stairs. I see your empty table and immediately my mind draws up the ghostly images of you sitting there paying bills or eating breakfast or working on your life story you left me to finish. I feel the softness of your touch as you held my hand when we talked. The poke to my backside whenever I bent over to help you with something. The racing heart and laughter when you jumped out at me from the storage room. I see your smiling face, your bitter tears, hear your gentle voice . . . but you're not here.

I don't know how to get over losing you, Mom. Sometimes I feel so alone, so abandoned by you and the rest of my family. I know you've been doing a work with them, a work you couldn't do here and have seen the changes in them for it. I don't resent that for them. I'm THRILLED that they get a piece of you, that they get your attention now. I know you've done what you needed to for me, for the moment anyhow, and I know I have to share--but still I miss you and can't help but be jealous that they get you now and I don't get to feel you near any longer.

I guess I feel like I've been shoved out of the nest when I'm not ready and that ground is coming up hard and fast and I can't figure out how to work my wings. Most days I'm afraid I'm going to splat all over the pavement. You were always there, lifting me back up when things got hard and I don't know that I ever learned how to fly.

I don't know how to express all the feelings that are weighing so heavily on me. Most days it feels like they're going to tear me apart, cripple me so much I'll never feel again. Some days I wish they would. At least then the pain would stop and I could function again. I had thought things would be better once the first year had passed, but I was wrong. It's as bad as ever and I feel more lost than anything. Why did you leave, Mom? Not just leave this earth, why did you leave me spiritually? I used to feel you close so often and now there's just an absence, a void where you once were. I've felt Daddy and Grandma around, but no Mom, and it's as obvious as the sun in the sky. You're not here.

Come back, Mom, even if it's just for a moment. Let me know I'm not abandoned, not forgotten. Help me remember I'm not alone.

Yours for eternity,

Karen