We took the boat out yesterday, the water was like glass.

We went someplace new so there were no memories there but I neede her to be sitting next to me in the boat her fingers skimming the clear water, I wanted to see her face again as she sat on the back of the fat red tube holding on tightly daring me to go faster. She was fearless back there with the wind in her hair. Instead it was our incomplete family on water that felt more like tears than a place to play.

The boat gave up. It just stopped in the middle of the lake. I opened the engine cover and down below there were a pair of sunglasses. They were hers from a trip a year ago. She thought she lost them, they were her favorite pair, she was so upset. We bought them in LA on our way back from Mexico. They fit her well, brown tortiose wrap around frames, she looked like a movie star in them.

I washed them off and put them on. The lenses were scratched but they felt so good. I wanted to say "Look baby you didn't lose them" But I didn't. I put them back.

I couldn't hear her say "Nothing is ever lost mom" but I feel it today and I want to believe it.

We were towed back to the dock by the sheriffs boat. Now we are home. I am alone in the house and that is hard. I wish she could come to me when I am alone. Maybe she is here how can I know?

When you leave your body what do you use for a voice? Are you so big that your loved ones can't see you, are you so small that they breath you in and don't even realise it?

I want to hear her whisper "I am right here mom, I have always been right here, don't cry, I am OK"

On the nineteenth I will go out to the cemetery, it is my day to go. I bring new silk flowers, I clean off her headstone, I look at the view, morbidly explore who has been buried close by since I was last there. I open the windows and doors of my car and play all her favorite songs on my IPOD no one seems to mind, her music is beautiful and fills the park; Belle and Sebastian crooning about one near perfect thing, Ben Gibbard softly singing about wanting to be were soul meets body. I want to sing back to him "I want to be were my soul meets hers" Where is that place?

I lay on her grave and talk to her, I cry, I sing, I wait for some magic to happen. I fantasize that she walks up the path, sits next to me and we talk for hours, we watch the sun go down together. I know she can not stay but the time we spend comforts me, it proves that she may not be with me like she use to be but she is somewhere and she is still who she always was just more.

What would you ask?

There is a list in my mind that starts with: Is there a God? Is there a reason? Is there a Heaven and does everyone get to go? Even bad guys? Is there a place for the people who thought they were the only ones going?

Are you happy? Do you miss your body? Do you miss your Room? Do you miss me?

Do you know how much I love you?

What do you do were you are do you like it?

Did it hurt to die? When did you leave? Who came to get you? Are you ever lonely? Can you hear me when I talk to you? Can you talk to me? How do I learn to hear you?

Why did this happen? Did I love you enough?

Do you know how much I miss you?

Is there anything I can do for you here?

You know I will never forget you right? You will never be replaced.

The list can go on and on but these are the most important and immediate things I need to know.

I dream of her sometimes she is who she was before she died and sometimes she is the person she was inside always, the person she didn't think anyone could see, I could, I could always see her.

I love to dream of her like that.

Tomorrow I will get up and begin the week. I will do all the things mothers do. If no one is home I will talk to her while I fold the laundry and pay the bills.

Tonight before bed I will light her candle, kiss her picture and whisper "I love you" until I fall asleep. Maybe in the place I go when I sleep she will be there, we will be on the boat, in that lake, at the exact moment the engine stopped. Everyone else will have disappeared It will just be the two of us frozen in time.

She will say "Mom look at how still the water is" She will reach for me and we will embrace, she will say, "I love you mom, I love you, I am not lost I am right here"