Since You've Been Gone: Guest Posting at Letters for Lucas

Source: raisinghomemakers.com

Today I'm honored to be guest posting at my friend Tonya's wonderful blog Letters for Lucas. My task was to write a letter. When I sat down and thought about who to address the letter to, there was only one person in my mind. 

One who isn't here anymore to read the words I write. 

Five months since you’ve been gone.

Five months and six days, actually. And that feels like forever, and like no time at all. It’s longer than we’d ever gone without talking, shorter than the time that had passed between your last visit and the last time I saw you.

I still do not believe you are gone.

You remain, everywhere. On my cell phone under “favorites,” even though I rarely called. In my Amazon.com address book, for when we ordered you things you needed, or things we thought you’d like. Scribbled on the Anthropologie gift card you gave me for my birthday, just like you did every year. I can’t bring myself to buy anything with it, even though I was just there, shopping for things to wear to a conference. I used my own money instead. Last year, you flew in to help your son watch our kids while I was at the same conference. Instead of being grateful, I was mad at you for finally coming to visit when I wasn’t even here.

I almost used the gift card to buy a dress for your funeral. I didn’t have anything to wear. I stood in the dressing room, tear-ravaged mascara streaked everywhere, wearing this A-line black shift, very chic, very timeless, just right for a funeral, and thought God she’d be mad if I used the money for this. So I kept the gift card and went to H&M and spent $20 and felt you would have approved. We had very different styles, you and me, but we loved clothes the same way—hungrily, passionately, endlessly.

Sometimes I’m still mad at you. I’m mad that your visits were so infrequent, that we never bonded the way I thought a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law were supposed to. I’m mad you never seemed bothered by it, when I would stew over the gap between us for days. I’m mad that we didn’t ever understand each other. Mad that you let me be self-righteous and standoffish and so very immature, sometimes, when you knew better and you could have told me. But you didn’t.

Mad that you loved me so much more than I ever knew.

Please visit Letters for Lucas for the rest of the letter. It's one of the hardest I've ever written...and one I should have written long ago.

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who voted for Karma (continued...) in the Top 25 SoCal Mom Blogs contest. So happy to report that thanks to you, I'm back in the top 25 this year!