Dear Mom,
This week will be a year since you left us. So many times I think it can't possibly have been a year, and in the same breath it seems like a lifetime. So much has changed, and so many things are the same. You had the reputation as the letter writer extraordinaire, and I thought I'd give this a try. I know that you already know everything I am about to say, because you're watching over us all, but these are the things I would say to you if I could.
It sounds trite, but I didn't realize how much you were to how many people until you weren't there. After you died, we were literally flooded by people who told us of the generous things you had done for them-- donations, food, a sympathetic ear, volunteering, calling to check up on them, so many things. I always knew you were a giving person but you did so very quietly-- I hope that one day I can have the same thing said about me.
I didn't realize that you were the heartbeat of our family. With you gone, to say that there is a gaping hole would be an understatement. I thank God every day that our extended family lives so close by and that I've been raised with aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on all my life. I don't know who or what I'd be if I didn't have them before, and God alone knows what I'd do without them now. Still, there is an almost palpable absence at every family gathering-- I catch myself looking around the room for you so we can giggle at silliness or I can catch you giving a "look."
I didn't realize that you were my home. Going to your house now is an almost other-wordly experience... it's the house I lived in for 20 years and yet it literally feels like an empty shell. Every corner I turn has some sacred memory attached to it, but the air feels thick and oppressive and seems to choke my precious childhood out of me. I think the oppressive air might have something to do with Dad not ever turning the air on... you'd be pleased to know that his thermostat stinginess remains unchanged, especially without you there to turn on the "damn hurricane machines."
Dad, Sister, and I are muddling through as best we can. We all have up days and down days and blah days and mad days. Sometimes we will spontaneously burst into laughter and tears in the same 10 minute time span. We've clung to each other, quite literally for our lives, because you made us a strong family. It is my prayer every day that we're making you proud and I'm doing enough to take care of everybody in your absence. I'll never be able to take care of anybody as well as you took care of us, but I am so grateful to have had you to show me how to try.
Emma Jean and Rosie miss you every day. You were Emma's best friend and she has not now, nor will she ever, forget you. When she is sad, she asks if she can "talk to Ebo for a minute." From the mouths of babes, as they say... never have I been so sure that you are still taking care of them, watching over them, comforting them as only you can do.
You should be proud of the ladies you loved the most-- they have descended upon us and wrapped us up in their arms and done so much for us all. I am so lucky to be the beneficiary of your relationships with your friends and family members-- because they first loved you, they love me too. I would not have survived this last year without them, and I count them all as my own little army of angels.
I think you'd be pleased by how much closer I've grown to God. I quickly realized that I wasn't going to make it through this without Him. You wrote me a note when you gave me my diamond cross that there would come a time in my life when I would literally fall on my knees, clutch that cross necklace, and cry out to God. Suffice it to say we've been there and back a few times this year. I have been, and still occasionally am, angry with God for taking you away. We'll get to that later. Still, you gave me such an incredible model of living a life of faith and dealing with adversity. Getting angry with God is not going to accomplish anything. With His help, I can accomplish anything.
Philippians 4:13-- "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."
I'll never be as good a cook as you. Ever. I have most of your cookbooks, and Nanny's, with adjustments scrawled in the margins, but it's not the same. I can't make good country fried steak. I never got to eat your famous Grand Marnier pineapple because I was always too young to get "the buzz" from the juice at the bottom! My cream cheese pound cake is always a little bit crumbly, and I swear there was a time when were teaching me to make it that you told me how to fix it. I can't remember, and I want to kick myself for not listening. When I do cook something of yours, cheesy as this may sound, I feel like you're with me. I feel like Nanny's with me. Holding that old, OLD battered Sunshine cookbook is a lifeline for me some days.
Most days I'm fine. Some days I'm not. I got so sad just last week that I slept on the floor of my closet because I was afraid I would wake Mike up with my crying in the middle of the night. It hits me at the strangest times, like the other day when I was singing "This Old Man" with Jeremiah. We got to "This old man, he plays seven, he plays knick knack up in heaven..." and I couldn't go on. Instead I stopped to talk to Jeremiah about Ebo.
I wish you could hold him, Mom. You were so excited to have a grandson and I STILL don't understand why you weren't allowed to meet him. He is the light of my life. He is so beautiful and so happy and every single day I stand in absolute awe of the gift I've been given. You told me, from the time I was tiny, that I was meant to be a mom. Laying on your bed with you, a year ago, 7 months pregnant and waiting for them to take you away, I told you that I couldn't do this without you. I'm still not sure that I can. So many times I find myself wondering if I am doing the right thing, feeding him the right thing, wiping his nose the right way, to call the doctor or not to call the doctor, so on and so on and so on and so on. I'm doing the best I can, but I feel like if I could double check a few things with you first, I'd be doing a lot better.
Thinking of Jeremiah can take me a to a place of anger. I can admit that I get angry about the fact that he won't get to know you or you to know him. He won't get to experience the completely enveloping love that you gave your grandchildren. You won't get to take him to Disney World. He won't get to hear you read "Nighty Night." I don't understand why. I don't understand why you had to go when you did, and I don't understand why it was so sudden. We still don't entirely know what happened. All I know is that in a single, earth-shattering phone call, my entire world got flipped upside down. I often was told that I had a "perfect life" growing up, and to be honest, I don't think were were perfect but I don't think we were too far off. There was never a day when I had to worry about anything-- I was beyond well taken care of, never lacked anything, brought up to respect myself and others, and loved to the moon and back. I never had any remote sort of crisis situation. I think it's safe to say that I now have dealt with a pretty big crisis. I've been told I'm doing it well, but I take no credit for that. That comes from how you and Dad raised me. Still, sometimes I don't hesitate to throw myself a great big pity party and feel sorry for myself for being a 28 year old first time mom who needs her own mom so much.
I've found that those pity parties are not so productive and often lead to such foolishness as sleeping on the closet floor. I feel like you were probably annoyed at me for sleeping on the closet floor that night-- that was your way. You would listen to me as long as I needed it, but once I reached the point where I was going in circles instead of forward, you'd call it off. "Abby..... take 3 deep breaths."
You told me to do that when I was a little girl, and I have kept that with me my whole life. Everything looks better after 3 deep breaths, which I need to take right now.
I'm afraid I'm going to forget what your voice sounded like.
I'm dreading the day that Jeremiah outgrows his Lil Dozer outfits, because those are the last ones that you bought him. It will be hard to pack those away.
Every so often I'll walk by a picture of you, and it feels like I've been hit in the stomach with a hammer.
I hope that you were singing "Reach Out" with us at the funeral, and I hope you were doing the dance that goes with it.
I wonder what sorts of things you have been shouting during Georgia games this year.
Sister and I will still get so hysterically tickled by poking fun at you. That has not changed, nor (I am sure) has your response, "Shut up."
Speaking of Sister, she needs to know where you put the shelves to her curio cabinet... she said you could send the info in a dream.
I thought it would bother me to have your ashes on my curio cabinet until we can make it to Montana. It doesn't.
Oh, Mom. I miss you so much. So so so very much. And I love you. So so so very much. When I was little, you would say back to me "I love you better." I never believed you. Now, being a mom, I do. I grew up completely surrounded by the most perfect, most all encompassing love from my own mother, and with that as my guide I can truly understand what it means to love my own child. You did love me more. You still do. I can still feel it, even on the saddest of my days. What a testament to your heart-- that it will go on.
Come on Mom, you know I had to throw that one in there. You LOVE Celine!
I miss you. I love you.
-Abby
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The Frigidaire Professional Slide In Gas Range with Convection Oven. It is my new happy place. Mike and I had long discussions about whether or not we should get a more cost-efficient model, but we finally arrived at the following points:
