Today I threw out the amaryllis bulb I've been nurturing and watching all season. I suppose I could have done like in years past and added it to one of my beds, but it just seemed wrong to keep watching it grow and bloom while I watch you wither away. I debated to even purchase one this year as we'd always forced the blooms together. A winter competition of sorts. We'd measure the progress and call one another "Mine grew 3 inches this week." "I added more sun, but cut back on water and now I have a bud on mine!" Somehow no matter what I did yours always ended up taller and always bloomed first.
I missed our conversations this year. You hardly answer my calls now. Sometimes you can't find the phone and sometimes you just don't feel like navigating through the fog of a social exchange. I get it. Our conversations get stuck in a loop. Always starting and ending in the same place. I know the kind thing is to continue the game, but sometimes I don't want to play ring around rosy . Sometimes I want to scream "I already told you that!" or "Why can't you remember?" Sometimes I just want my mom.
It's an odd thing to miss someone who's not physically gone. To grieve for someone over and over. To have the curtain of hope lifted and lowered without rhyme or reason. You learn to cling to the glimpses you are given. You pray for days full of grace and peace instead of anxiety and agitated confusion. You learn to ignore a sharpness that wasn't there before. You figure out how to explain to your children that sometimes adults say things they don't mean to people they love beyond reason.
I would give anything if I could fill in the missing pieces for you - to make things make sense again. To watch Daddy care for you both inspires me and breaks my heart. I've said time and again that he is the epitome of in sickness and in health. He is loyal and devoted and tender. There have been times I've felt like there wasn't room for me here. That you and Daddy have boarded up the windows and locked the doors- determined to keep me out. But it wasn't WHO you were keeping OUT, was it? It was WHAT you were keeping IN. No more names forgotten, no more dates confused, no more memories lost. I love you and I understand.
