I’ll leave this post short because, honestly, the details are still a little raw and very personal. I’m writing this as a letter to my Mom, a conversation I’ll never have but words that need to be spoken.

It doesn’t seem like it’s been an entire year since your passing. Some of the details leading up to your leaving still feel like moments that never really happened. I remember the ice cream you ate the night before, the look of enjoyment on your face, I’ll never forget. It’ll forever be one of my best memories. Though you were dying, I choose to remember this good thing because remembering the sadness just pulls out the pain that’s already been felt and shouldn’t have to be relived.

Death is a cruel reminder that our lives don’t last forever, but the memories we make along the way do. Maybe we are able to carry those into the life beyond this one. I hope so. I like to believe that somehow you’re able to see the happenings we are experiencing here with a smile because we have been able to carry on in spite of your absence.  And I like to believe that you are, in all your glory, reunited with the ones you loved, some you had not seen for a very long time at the moment of your passing. Knowing that you are with so many who have gone before makes the pain of your loss easier for me.

So many memories surround the home we all grew up in. I’m still here waiting for everything to align in order to move forward. Your presence is felt everywhere and in everything in this house. We’ve given some things to loved ones and boxed up others to share with those in need. Some things… we’ll  just say you were probably gonna throw those out anyway (I hope). It’s been tough going through a lifetime of your memories and your personal things, but in some ways, it’s been therapeutic. We still have a little ways to go, and then I guess we’ll see where life takes us from this place.

I miss you more than I could ever convey. There really aren’t words adequate enough to do justice to how I feel. I know when Daddy passed just a couple of years before, you never really felt the same. You said as much yourself, but we also saw that and understood.

I just want you to know that I celebrate you and your new journey through the afterlife, whatever that may be. I choose to remember all the good things about you and not the pain that happened in the end. When I think of you, I still sing loudly the songs we’d sing while we were cleaning or just riding in the car. I miss our impromptu sing-a-longs. I miss our talks. I just miss you.

Published by Jeff

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