Dear Mom,
It has been years since I saw you, years I refuse to count. So much has changed. I can still remember the last time I saw you, I cried as I went to my plane, I felt death even then, from the moments we hugged goodbye. I thought Julie was going to die, but it was you. I still cannot shake that moment.
I have been thinking of all the things you’ll never know. You never knew that I went to college just to make you proud; you’ll never know the struggle after you died to finish. You never saw James married, or Julie, or Jeffrey. You never met the women I married who you’d prayed for all those years. You didn’t see the rose we had for you at my wedding, or the music to the dance that should have been ours. You’ll never see the faces of your grandchildren, or meet the woman who is married to Dad. Since you left there have been so many struggles, so many losses, and so many stolen moments.
I am in massage school now, I remember you asking me to rub your neck, all those pains which were missed signs you were sick. I want to be a healer, because of you another thing you’ll never see. Sometimes I imagine your view point, seeing everything, but that is no comfort for I will never look you in the eye again, face those fierce blue eyes which burn with love, harsh, judging, soft knowing, comforting eyes.
We spread your ashes under two trees we planted for you at home, though the word home doesn’t fit without you in it. I planted a tree at college for you, I saw it last week and it is still growing, now taller than you ever were in life. Yet your shadow still remains, you will never know the impact you’ve had both in life and death. I was so very mad at you in life, how you pushed toward a non-directed perfection, pushed to love the other no matter the scars it would cost, my anger died with you.
You’ll never know how you shaped this world by your presence as well as your absence. The people in my life who remember you are dwindling, as are the ties I can touch and see that remind me of you. Your pictures are so very small in comparison to the women you were.
All this, all that happens in my life from that point where you staggered and fell for the last time… all the joys and pains we yearn to share, all the hopes and dreams that were born and died since you went away, everything that is stuck inside of me, all I want to ask and share… all of it, you will simply never know, never hear.
With Love in Sorrow,
Squeaker
