A Letter to my Mother...

Dear Mom, 

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of you in some way. Be it a fleeting memory or like today, a full out conversation with you in my head; every day you are present in my heart and mind. Some days I feel sorrow and anguish, other days I still feel angry, still other days I just feel melancholy and reminiscent. Some days I wish you were here to see the things I see in a real and tangible way. Some days I just want to call you up and say, "can you believe this shit???" I Think it's those days that are the hardest. Not the days when I miss my childhood mommy; the one who drove me to soccer practice, kissed my boo boos and helped me with my school projects... because I still have those days too, when I'm sick or really tired. It's the days that I miss my grown up mom that have become the most difficult now. The days I miss my mother, the woman; my mother, the friend... those are the hardest because I'm not really sure what I'm missing. We never had a chance to sit down and discuss life woman to woman, we never had the opportunity to share stories or be confidants in that way. There are parts of you I will never know, because they are the parts I wasn't meant to know until I became I woman myself, and then time escaped us. Most days I can just think of you with a smile and go on with my day, but then there are days like today when I am lying awake in the dark wondering why you had to go, why I had to be short-changed on what I can only imagine is the best part of the mother/daughter relationship - the friendship part. I have missed you  since the second you left us. Every day for the past 5317 days I have wished you were still here; but the way I miss you has changed. I used to miss only your presence -  the scent, the feel, the sound of you; but now it is so much more. Now that I am a wife and mother myself, I miss more of the you I didn't know than the you I remember, if that makes sense. Today as I sit here at my pity party for one, I feel angry. I feel gypped. I haven't felt this way in a long time. I suppose I should feel fortunate instead, that maybe I should thank you... because of your cancer I fight hard every day to stay healthy and strong for my kids. Because I watched you always put everyone else first and never make any time for yourself, I know I must make time for me in order to be the best wife and mother I can be. Because you had to leave me, I know I have to do whatever is in my power to stay here so I can watch my boys grow up to be loving husbands and dads... So I can wait on pins and needles until the day my little girl considers me her best friend...

Tomorrow is a new day. Hopefully I will be back to just thinking of you with a smile for a while, but just know that however brief my memories may be on some days, you are always in my heart. I treasure every single memory of you, and although I now mourn more of what could have been, I would never change a single thing. I would rather have had you for 20 short years, than never have had you at all. Missing you always <3

All my love forever, 

Petunia