I wanted to bring you flowers.
If you were here, I would bring you flowers and a card. We would have went out to brunch, or maybe a dinner. Maybe you could have came to my apartment, I could have showed you around. I could have showed you all the new things I bought, tell you about the newest chapter in my life. We could have celebrated together.
It’s not our custom to bring flowers to graves, but I know how much you love flowers,
and I couldn’t call you today.
I couldn’t call you, I couldn’t visit you, I couldn’t wish you a happy Mother’s Day, tell you how much I love you. I just wanted to celebrate with you, and I couldn’t do that. So I brought you a rose, and I hope you’re not mad, because I know it isn’t what we do, but the next visitor to walk by your grave will see that someone came to you, that someone thought of you, that you still exist in our minds and in our hearts, that you still matter, that you still deserve a Mother’s Day celebration.
Today was a little bit extra hard, even though I managed to stay off social media for most of it. I couldn’t help crying when on the way to the cemetery people were handing out bouquets in the streets, and I so wanted to buy you one, and smile as I told them thank you, and they would know that I was bringing them to my mother, and then I would drive to meet you somewhere and see you smile and smell them and say how much you love them. It broke my heart, to see my one rose lying on the seat next to me. That this is how I visit you.
I don’t know what else to say. I want to be able to write more things, more positive, more hopeful messages, more meaningful posts. But it has been a little bit more hard, maybe because I have been a little bit more sad, and, it is terribly sad to be sad without your mother.
I didn’t realize how close I was to you, until when I’m feeling sad, and I so desperately want to call you, to hug you, to come home to you, and to lay with you, and have you stroke my hair, and tell me it’ll be okay. I didn’t realize how lonely this would be,
sadness without you.
I just want to be your daughter again.
Recently, in the house, I found this paper, this project from school that I made for you on Mother’s Day back in 6th grade. Like all my silly little crafts that I brought home so proudly from school, you kept it. And I cry as I read this, because, how blessed, how blessed I was, to have felt so strongly about a mother, how blessed I must have been, a 6th grader, to try and think of all the things I loved about you. I cry because I remember giving this to you, I remember how excited you were, how you always reacted so big to things that were so little. I cry because I am so thankful to have had you, and I am so, so, so, heartbroken to have lost you.
To the best mother I could have ever had in a lifetime,
Happy Mother’s Day Mommy, I love you.
—
2010
Ode to Mother
I love the way
I hear the smile
in your voice
as you ask me,
“How was your day?”
I love the way
your hug feels
to me,
warm,
inviting,
safe.
I love the way
you wipe away
my tears
when I am sad,
I love the way
you make me smile
and even laugh.
I love the way
you care for me
and will always
be there
to catch me
if I fall.
I love the way
when I’m in your arms
I feel at home.
I love the way
your food tastes
no one
can make food
like you do.
I love the way
that when I’m angry
no matter
what,
I’ll always love
YOU.
Grieving Moments 