4 years later...

It has been four years, and the pain has dulled, but deepened. It has stayed in the background, and squeezed it's hands around me less often, but when it does, it wraps itself around every part of my soul. My heart doesn't just ache, my spirit cries out under the weight of the pain. Does time heal the wound? No, but it distracts me.

I have a baby you haven't met. A baby who will not know you. A baby who will not have a picture with you. A baby who will hear stories about you always, but have no connection to you emotionally. A baby you would adore.

Brantley is four and Bella is six. They fight all the time but love each other fiercely. Brantley does not know you. Bella has one memory of you, and I am not even convinced it is truly hers, but one she created from watching me cry over you.

Most days, I really am okay. I am more than okay. I am happy, I am thriving, my children are healthy, my marriage is good. God has been good to us, we have a good life.

It isn't so much that I'm not "over it," because that is not an option when you lose your parent. You don't have the choice of getting over it. I get around it, I get through it, I carry it with me, but do I ever leave it behind? No. I am shaped by my mother. My steps are your steps, my values are your values, my blood is your blood.

I think what hurts me the most is that I love you so deeply, so strongly, that I can still feel you next to me, yet I haven't laid eyes on you or spoken to you in four years. I don't have panic attacks at the thought of life without you anymore, but the deep, nauseating, terrified pit in my stomach returns from time to time.

When that happens, I still feel my world stop, and think everyone else's should too. Inside I scream STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING, MY MOTHER IS DEAD! FEEL MY PAIN! HURT WITH ME! And no one does. The world keeps turning, my kids get bigger, I get older, but I've learned that one part of me is always 26 years old, with new glasses, a 2 year old and an infant at home, begging God to save my mother. Some part of me is always that girl, will always be that girl.

It is late and I'm rambling, but I had to write this because my heart is bleeding tonight. In 2 days you will have been gone four years. It feels like 4 hours and 40 years all at once. It is much too long in either case.

I miss you, I love you, I ache for you.

Mom. I hope I've made you proud.