Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I miss you.  A lot.   A lot a lot.  So much that at times, it literally takes my breath away and I can't breathe for a minute.  I can't tell you how many times I wish I could pick up the phone and call you, or just send you a text.  Like today, I was looking through pictures and saw a picture from the last Christmas you were really with us, and I giggled.  It's a picture of you holding a candle with a smug look on your face.  It was an inside joke.  I wanted to text you about it so we could laugh together.

Speaking of candles... Ava Kate ate a birthday candle last week.  Like ATE it and then threw most of it up and said she didn't like it.  (Ugh, I know right!?!  How does that even happen??)  I panicked and the first thing I wanted to do was call you to ask what to do.  I called Poison Control instead... which was probably a better idea anyway.  She's obviously fine now.  She's the spitting image of you.  She walks just like you.  Stops and puts her hand on her hip, just like you.  Gives the side eye, just like you.  Even her little smile is just like yours.  It's actually kind of freaky sometimes, in a good kind of freaky way.

And sweet little Eve is becoming quite the little personality herself.  :) Oh how I wish you could love on them and squeeze them tight.  I wish you were here to "fight" with Mrs. Lydia over whose house they get to spend the night at next.  I wish you were here for me to go shopping with... shocking, I know.  You are pretty much the reason why I don't like to go shopping with other people.   I hated how long it took you to look at something to decide if you liked it or not... and how you would try on things "just to see," even if you didn't like it on the rack - I mean, who does that??  But I would love to spend the day with you running errands and just doing every-day-life together.  When other people complain about their moms, I just want to lecture them... I'd still complain if you were here too... but I would know in the core of my being how precious the ability to complain about your mom is.  Those little moments are sacred because you were there.

I also pretty much always think of you when someone is giving me directions (which I still suck at by the way).  All I can hear is you saying, "You just keep going, and you'll pass this on the right, and you keep going, and you'll go past that little store on the left, and then go through the stop sign and just stay straight until you get to such-in-such, and then keep going past that a little ways to the shop on the right... you know... that little shop on the right?" "Mom, I don't know what shop you're talking about." "Yes you do, that little shop.  Right there on the right.  Well anyways, just go past it.  You'll know it when you see it."  Me: Nod. Pulls up the GPS.  

I think about you when I make spaghetti.  Every time I pass Talbots.  Every time I go to Dad's.  Dad's.  Whenever I see a big TV box in the back of a truck.  And... when I see Young & the Restless. :)  Don't worry, nothing has changed -- if you watched it today, you wouldn't have missed a thing.

I cannot believe it's been five years since I heard your voice and felt your touch.  It seems like just yesterday and forever ago at the same time.  Sometimes it's hard to remember what you were like before you were sick.  Sometimes I can imagine what life would be like if you were here and not sick.  Most of the time I just feel the void of where you should be, but aren't.  I look back at pictures of wonderful, special times and can't help but remember that you're not in them.  Pictures of my daughters' births, our annual beach pictures, Weston's graduation, Amanda's wedding.  Things that I wish you were here for and grieve because you're not physically with us in those moments.

But Mom, we are doing good.  Parker and I have two beautiful girls.  Weston graduated (please, personally thank the Good Lord for that, haha).  He's wonderful - funny, generous, polite, and an amazing uncle. And Dad's doing really good too - he's so good with the girls - no surprise there.  He keeps them a lot and has still got a knack for babies.  They adore him.  :)  We miss you and think about you all the time.  Love you always.  See you again later!

xoxoxo,