Dear Momma

Tonight I miss you.  I miss you often, of course, and at certain times I miss you more than others, but tonight I am desperate for you.  

I wish that I could pick up the phone and just talk, cry, hear your voice soothing me, get your advice and encouragement, your love.  You've been gone for 20 years now, and I need you more than ever.

I don't know what I'm doing, momma.  You've done all of this before so tell me what to do now... You were gone before I ever knew I'd need you for this.  I don't know how to stop, back up, start over - I don't know how to go forward, to step out and believe that it will all be ok in the end.  I don't know how to go on... 

I imagine us sitting together, cups of creamy steamy coffee in front of us, you with a cigarette dangling from your fingers and a circle of smoke floating above you.  I see us at my kitchen table and the sun coming in thru the French doors and warming us.  (But, really, would you smoke in my house?) The dog will be in your lap, the baby will be in mine, and I will cry into his wispy hair.  You will stub out your cigarette and blow smoke off to the side (mom! Are you smoking near my baby?) as you reach out to grab my hand and hold it. I feel your dry skin, your firm grip, and I draw strength from you.  Maybe if I imagine it enough, I can pull some measure of strength from my imagination into this mess I so badly need you here for.

Be with me, but more than that, be with my son.  Whisper into your grandsons heart, be the voice in his head  that I can't be, be the lifeline he needs in my place - he won't listen to me, he won't hear me, and I'm so afraid of losing him.  Help him, momma, please... He won't let me.  I don't know how to be his momma, but you did it for two boys so surely you have the insight I need. 

I love you momma... I miss you...

For all of you, all at once...

I would slay any dragon for the sweet words you speak.  You give me courage immeasurable...

I would lay down my life to be back in your arms - to be back in your arms 10 years ago when I could have made things different... No, 15 years ago... No, 20 - that's right, it would need to take us back 20 years to make it right, but still, I would give everything I have now just to go back with this knowledge and insight...

I felt your prayers wash over me and I have to tell you the power of your good and honest prayer was a physical presence for me.  God was here, in my mouth and in my hands and in my perception and insight and emotions - He was here and it was better and I was protected.

I love you so... I see who you are and how you don't care (and yet how you ache and desire) and the mean and the kind and the hard and the soft and the tough and the weak - and oh God I love you so... You and I are bound by blood , by common experience: times when we were shaped into who we are - yet we are also separated later on by lives so drastically different which  shaped who we were into who we are NOW... But our very heartbeats thrum to the same rhythm of loss and regret and abandonment, who else could ever truly understand us but each other?

Oh how i hate hate hate you and how he love love loves you - it cuts deep, like the scars on my arms that were there before we even met - his love and my hate.  His love wins.  And it always will.  I will forever taste bitterness with you.

I ache for your strength.  I know the demons you battle and I cannot figure out how you so gracefully navigate them.  I sit closer to you, text you more often, and invite you out repeatedly just so I can borrow your strength.

I am in awe of you.  I've given my children everything with no reward and you are there on your own with the daily drama and the 40 hour work week and the evening classes and papers and exams and that smile - oh that smile!!  I want to smack your parents into the next life so they can see the tremendous beauty that is YOU!

This year, this new year... I will honor all of you.