4am

It's four in the morning, I can't sleep.  the house is quiet full of my sleeping family and visiting relatives.    In a few hours I will make a big breakfast for everyone and the day will start, plans will be made,  a summer day will begin.

It is dark in this room there is a soft glow from the computer screen so I can see the baby curled up lost in his milky slumber all cheeks and big hands.  He fills me up that little boy of mine, I love him so very much.  I knew he would bring me comfort but I could have never imagined how much he would squeeze my heart and change my life.

It has been a Stevie week.  I wake up with her songs in my head and I play them because it feels like I should, it's how we communicate.  The closer I feel her the heavier my heart is but I embrace that ache because it's what I have.  I feel a shift, I feel like she is bringing me closer to something and I want to be open to her even if it hurts.

It has been six years since she left, her birthday is fast approaching and there is always this "feeling" when touchstone days are just up ahead, it's like returning...

The song that has been stuck in my head this week has been "When She Loved Me" and I have played it over and over.

When somebody love me,
Everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together lives within my heart
And when she was sad,
I was there to dry her tears
And when she was happy
so was I
When she loved me

Through the summer and the fall
We had each other that was all
Just she and I together
like it was meant to be

And when she was lonely,
I was there to comfort her
And I knew she loved me

So the years went by
I stayed the same
But she began to drift away
I was left alone
Still I waited for the day
When she would say
I will always love you...

 Lonley and forgotten
I never thought she'd look my way
She smiled at me and held my hand just like she used to do
Like she loved me
When she loved me

When somebody loved me 
Everything was beautiful
Every hour we spent together 
lives within my heart


When she loved me



I am mother who is missing her daughter, it is that simple.  This is difficult in all its stages and there is no one place you arrive and say "Ok I am fine now, I can move on" You simply live because you must and you find great love, happiness, and meaningful things to do but nothing is ever like it should be, there is always a missing piece, a longing, an ache, a need for answers.

There are moments when a sense of peace finds you, it blows through you like a warm breeze, you sigh and for just a moment you whisper "Ok, I am Ok, I get it" then it fades, it's gone then you go back to the dishes, you plant your garden, you cry in the shower, you kiss a baby and you think love and loss are the same intense thing to fully embrace one you must embrace the other.

After six years I am still waiting for her.  I have this fantasy that she will wake me up at four in the morning.  I will open my eyes and she will be sitting on this bed smiling, her voice soft, only I will hear it, no lips just our minds speaking to each other.  She will answer all my questions and I will be able to finally let go...I will exhale I will know she is where she is most happy and all the things I thought I needed to tell her she will already know.  

Until then I look for pink skies, I play her songs, I sleep in her bed, I touch her books, I stay busy, I kiss Elliott and Noah one extra time for her, I try to be Aly's friend because if Stevie were here she would do the same.  I hold this family together because I need for us to be a shining light she can find when she needs us, I can't stand to think of us scattered.

I wake up at this hour that is almost morning but still night, this in-between place, I wait...

A mid-summer nights dream

It 's mid-summer, the nights are warm, the days are long and we have been going to bed later and later.   I woke up very early this morning from a dream about the world breaking apart, collapsing, loud and heavy, and I did everything I could to avoid falling beams and debris.  Then there was a big hole where reality once was and I discovered we were merely a world under another world, two buildings sharing a ceiling and a floor.

It was still dark in my room as I made my way to the hall, hit the night light, found the toilet and peed.  I sat there shaking off the dream tired but knowing I would not find sleep again.  I checked the baby, covered him with a soft blanket he would just kick off, found my journal, grabbed a quilt from the sofa and headed out to the front porch.  I was sleep walking, or it felt like it when I sat down and looked up to find a sky turning from indigo to the most beautiful pink where the sun was just beginning to rise.

A pink sky like that makes my heart beat differently, I catch my breath, i throat aches.  I needed to put my feet in the grass, be connected to the earth talk to my girl in case she woke me and moved me out here to see this beautiful sky painting of hers.  Tears fell and not caring what anyone else thought I spoke to her out loud, in my night shirt and bare feet, "Stevie if you woke me for this thank you lovey, thank you for the pink I needed that baby, I love you so much, I miss you so much."

I have spent the day not doing much of anything: a load of laundry,  baked a peasant pie out of left over blueberries, nectarines, and a french pastry crust made with butter.  I have picked up around the house, nursed and comforted Elliott after he fell of the couch while playing with Aly.  He took a dive faster than she could catch him, it was awful and I will watch and worry all day that he broke something or has brain damage.  I folded some towels, answered some emails, moved some money into our checking account because we are overdrawn.

I have a long list of things that need doing, places that I have to go but I can't seem to get up and out.  I am still in my night clothes, I am eating pie, I am enjoying this strange pale grey sky and this July warm day.  I am feeling blessed, feeling like I need to nest.  I can't explain it.  I will honor what ever this is and just be in this moment where a baby is asleep on my lap, my boy has a day off and is enjoying not having to be at a rehearsal or show.  Aly is home and she is being nice.   Someone is grilling and the scent is coming in through my open windows.

I am thinking about that dream.  What if that is all this is, a big building of sorts and even thought it feels like a world is only a room.  There is another one upstairs, and downstairs and next door...what an awesome thought.

I watched the Truman show on Netflix a couple weeks ago, there is this moment where he is sailing on a vast ocean looking for answers and he runs into a wall painted like the sky, and in a moment his entire world is a television studio and everything seems so small.  I find that powerful.  If you think of it that way you kinda feel bigger, and the things you thought were important before are just props, and everyone is in this thing with you, its a game thats all it is.  I find comfort in that.

I want to tear down the wall that seperates me from Stevie, I want to flip the board like I use to when I still played monopoly before everyone realized I was a sore loser and stopped inviting me to play.  I want to say "Oh, I see now

, wow that was pretty convincing, I am all done, let's eat."  Mystery over and there Stevie would be smiling, and Claire would be a grown up, I would know her face, and all my relatives would have a big table set and there would be candles and laughter and stories.

Today I will just have to play this game, drown myself in a pink sky, hold onto the dream of a crashing world, kiss Elliott's toes, make spaghetti for dinner and be in this moment, it's what I have and sitting here relaxed, filled with love and hope, I realize it isn't so bad, it's actually kinda wonderful.

Bath

A new baby in our house...Ok I will admit I had this romantic idea that he would be this sweet bundle of love and cuddles and birdies would help me hang my laundry, I would tidy up while he giggled and coo'd in his cradle, I would wear him in a sling while I planted my garden and painted in my studio...

Wrong.

Babies are a lot of work (if you are 19 or 47) they are just a 24 hour a day job.  It happens to be the best job in the world, it is difficult and messy and somedays you forget who you are but there is nothing that has filled me up so much, made me feel as important, whole, good as waking up to a little milk-dud with fuzzy hair and a warm diaper, I am just one of those women.  I love to be pregnant even though I am usually throwing up the whole nine months.  I love breastfeeding, even though it limits what I can do and where I can go.  I love watching my babies sleep, even when they are thirteen and have hairy legs and are 6 feet tall.

Today was the same day as yesterday and there might be some subtle variation but I expect tomorrow will be the same as today.  For those of you who wonder what a stay-at-home mom does on a typical day here ya go.

I get up at 6am,  It is my personal internal alarm clock that wakes me.  I use to wake at 5am before the baby to write but I am a little bit sleepier because I get up at 3 and 5 to nurse the baby.

I begin by picking up last nights mess.  I am the first to bed at night so the house gets tossed about while I am sleeping.  I will pick up shoes, dishes, a towel, homework, an empty popcorn bowl, a book, a game, a jacket or two, car keys, etc.  I fold the sofa blanket, put the pillows back, throw a load of laundry in and try to unload the dishwasher.

At 7am I wake up Noah and change Elliott's diaper, he is usually awake by 6:45, usually smiling, wet, and in need of some serious good morning cuddles.  I tell him how handsome he is, that we are going to have an awesome day, I kiss his cheeks and feet, read him a story and then we get into the kitchen.  I put him in his chair and give him treats to nibble on (cereal, banana's, mango) while I make Noah's lunch and finish the dishes.

Insert:  I have not dressed or brushed my teeth yet.

Steve drives Noah to school after a little game of "do you have your homework, your lunch, your gym shoes?"

At 9am Steve goes to work and I nurse the mouse, he takes a 10 minute morning nap which isn't really a nap but a little fake-out, he needs to be held while he fills his tummy with milk, he wants to close his eyes while I kiss his hands and count his toes, it is his sweet time.

9:10 am  I put him in his bouncy seat outside so I can water the garden and pull some weeds, if he is in a good mood I might hang some laundry.  Then we come in and I let him play on his matt while I clean up the breakfast/lunch making mess.  There are always more chores to do than I can get to so I try and do one big thing a day like wipe down the cupboards, clean out the frig, change the sheets on the beds, clean the bathrooms, that kind of thing.  I don't always get it done but I try.

By 10:00 he is ready for a nap, not a long one but a short morning nap, more nursing, fussing playing, wiggling, then he is out for a good 20 minutes.  He wants to be held, if I put him down he will wake up and be grouchy.  I usually have my laptop next to me so I will answer emails, pay bills, check in with facebook (it is almost like being around people) and read a little news if I have time.

10:30 we play on his matt, do tricks, read stories, change his diaper, I take him from room to room and pick up where I can.  We might sit out on the grass and watch cars go by, I trim his nails, fold clothes, feed him lunch (cereal, fruit, steamed veggies, pasta) he nibbles, doesn't eat much but loves to make a big mess, I let him, it's how he learns, he is a little explorer and it's a messy job.  I try to eat with him, I am usually rushed and eat crappy carbs or left overs, I eat too much because I skipped breakfast, and because I am sorta just eating without thinking, trying to keep it easy for myself.

I give him a bath, I might get in the tub with him and wash my hair, he loves this, I do too.  I like to lay in a tub full of super hot water, some lavender, a good book, get all drowsy...a bath with a 7 month old is not the same.   His bath is 5 inches of barely warm enough water and often more floaty toys than water.  He will splash and babble, I will lather him up with baby soap sing him silly songs.  I get out first, then pop him out.  I drip and freeze while I get him dried off and dressed before he gets chilled.  He usually cries through this process because he hates to get dressed and he is ready for nursing and a nap and does not want to be bothered with diapers, t-shirts that need to be snapped and legs that need to be shoved into baby yoga pants.

12:00 nurse the baby then down for the big nap.  He will sleep about an hour but I need to nurse him until he is good and traveled to dreamland or he will wake up and be crabby.  That usually gives me about 30 minutes to get dressed, brush my teeth, and throw a load of laundry in and maybe tackle a chore.

1:00 we go to the store for groceries, to the bank, get the car smogged, drop off stuff at goodwill, go to the post office, the hardware store, get new tires, get the car washed, stuff like that, what ever needs doing.

We have to pick Noah up from school at 3pm,  two days a week we have a carpool so the car is full of other teenagers who come to our house to do homework, eat dinner with us, then I take them to rehearsals.  In exchange Noah gets a ride home from rehearsals two days a week.  On the other days we come home, Noah does homework before rehearsals, I make dinner, Elliott will sit in his chair or play with toys or fuss and cry, usually all of the above.  He hates the car so it is pure torture for him all the way up and back, usually a whole lot of crying.

Back at home I nurse Elliott, he falls asleep for about 20 minutes, he wants to be held.  I might read or write in my journal with him on my lap.  Steve is home, he has tennis, or work, or watches sports, he might do a chore, take a nap, eat dinner.  Elliott will hang out with Steve for about 30 minutes, they will play, he loves Steve.

I usually take him to the park at 7pm because the sun is just going down, it is still a little warm out, there are kids at the park, it is the time I use to go walking before the baby, I like that time of night.  I take him to the baby swing, let him look around, watch kids, then we go home.

By 8:30 he is washed up, pajamas on and nursing again.  He nurses a lot, it is good for him and I don't mind it's just time consuming not a lot of multi-tasking can happen.

Noah comes home, finishes homework and everyone else in in bed by 10pm.

Each day so like the other they all seem to blend into one long, long, long day until months have gone by and you don't know how.  There are days when everything is upside down because so many other things have to get squeezed in.

Right now I am trying to get the house organized (because I didn't do it before the baby came, thought I had another 4 weeks).  I am trying to close my business and move my studio ( didn't think I was closing before Elliott came, thought he would go to work with me).  We have to baby proof, replace our garden beds, cut down and replant a big tree, build a fence around the pool, we had to some wiring and wall repair in the living room that lead to painting a wall, moving furniture.  We had Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, my mothers illness and death.  Noah has had four plays and a dozen performances, school functions, dentist appointments, dances.  Elliott had two hospitalizations, well baby exams, we had whooping cough.

It has been busy, scary, fun, exhausting, good.

Tonight I am up late because I want to record this, remember this.  Someday I will wish I could do this again, be sad that I can't and I want to remember how hard it was, how lonely and bored I got, but most I want to remember that I had this and I did it well and it was really wonderful.

Extra wrinkles

I knew going in that I would get questions, funny looks, maybe someone would wonder if I was the mama or the gran.  I told myself I would handle it with grace and humor, never be hurt by it, and always be kind.  So far I am doing a pretty damn good job.

I took Elliott to lunch today, just the two of us, we shared brown rice topped with stir fried veggies and tofu.  I let him have sips of my green tea and he shared all his teething toys with me.  I am in love with this boy.

What is it like to be the mama of a 7 month old when you yourself are 47?  Pretty friggin' fantastic.  I won't lie part of me knew I was too old to be having a baby, not because I felt "old" but because I knew old was coming, and it is a train you can not stop.

My grandmother was 46 when I was born.  I have an old black and white photo of her holding me out in front of her barn-house on San Fernando Street, her hair was still thick and black, she was short and stocky, big breasted, shiny face and a long nose like mine.  She held me less like a precious package and more like a loaf of bread, didn't want to squeeze me too hard by knew she couldn't break me.  She is smiling in the picture, so am I.  I am bald and fair skinned, small, happy, comfortable in her arms.

My gram was my gram and to me she was always "old"mostly  because I had a young mom, just 19 years older than me and my aunts and uncles were young so were my cousins.  Looking back now I see that she wasn't old at all and what I would do to go back and time and have a good talk with her at that age...

I wonder if Elliott will see me as old?  Will he be resentful that I won't be pretty and perky, that I will have long given up trying to look like a 30 year old?  Will he be creeped out by the grey hair that is taking over, by the extra wrinkles around my eyes and around my mouth?  Will I be menopause crazy, hormonal and weepy instead of Premenstral crazy, hormonal and weepy, is there a difference?  Poor guy.

Will I hit some wall people hit and start forgetting where I put things, tell the same stories over and over, wear ugly shoes, say things like "thats a fine how-do-you-do"  Will he be embarrassed?  God I hope not.  Will I start falling apart, getting sick, need to wear pajamas in the day time?  Will the house smell like soup and over ripe bananas, will I offer his friends stale cookies, will I wear glasses that make my eyes look even bigger than they already are?

These are things I can't know, what I do know is that today he is an infant that just started saying Mamamamama...to me, to the dog, to Steve, and to the fish at the pediatricians office, it is still the most beautiful word in the world to me.  He is happy, I am happy.  I go to bed when he does and we wake up before the sun, lay in bed and nurse, I tell him sleepy stories about what kind of magical day we are going to have.  We will find an elephant in the back yard, grow a cupcake tree, throw all the shoes in the house away, buy a rocket ship and go to mars and eat puffy rice snacks.

I don't regret this choice, not today, not when I have this boy in my arms and he fills me up with hope and love and dreams for him.  I look forward to each new day and what new thing it will bring; sitting up without a pillow, tasting avocado, touching my face while he nurses, watching little birds in our tree fly down and drink from our fountain.

What is it like to be an old mama?  Like it was being a young one only better.  When you are young you are distracted, time doesn't mean as much to you because it seems like you will always have more of it than you need.  Today I know there is never enough time, and children can die of cancer, and there can't be anymore babies, and someday this will all be over and feel like a blink of an eye, so I hold onto every precious moment, I don't let my day go easily, I am grateful for everyone of them and make them last, savor the way it unfolds.

Now that my mom is gone I feel like time is moving faster for me.  She died young, in my family women live forever it seems, we don't age well but we spend a long time being old mean and ugly.  I can't die in my 60's Elliott will still need me, I can't get sick or be too mean or ugly because it won't be fair to him.

I don't worry about fitting back into my pre-pregnancy jeans, how I will schedule in the gym, a pedicure or some well earned "me" time.  I think about keeping my body strong, my mind young and maybe in a couple years getting my eyes done so they won't get lost behind the saggy lids I am sure to inherit from my father.  I stress out about saving for college, having life insurance, keeping my heart healthy.

It is easy to love this little boy, to get lost playing with him for hours.  It is easy to breastfeed, to know when to introduce solid foods, where to  look for a first tooth.  I don't worry about when he will crawl or walk, he will do it when he is ready.  I don't wonder when he pooped last, his body knows what to do.  I know what to do for a cold, a diaper rash, colic.  He falls asleep when he is tired, and he wakes up when he isn't anymore.  I wear him, he sleeps next to me, and I don't care what anyone calls it or thinks about it, I am way over that.  I have learned to trust my instincts.

The hard part is being afraid that one day he will look at me and ask me why I am so old, why I waited so long, that he will be hurting because I am gone and he still needs a mom.  I hate thinking that someday he will have to take care of me.

Most days I just enjoy this, I have no regrets, and some part of me feels like it is all going to be just fine.

I love this part of life, it's hard work, but it completes me and it doesn't matter how old I am.

Elizabeth

My mom left her body last night.  My dad called my sister because it was the only number he could find.  My sister tried to call me but I didn't have my phone, I was at a party surrounded by lovely women and children, a baby on my lap.  I am sure if my mother looked for me as she was ascending she would have smiled to see me there happy and having a great time.

I am sad.  I really didn't think I would be.  I know that sounds terrible but I disconnected from her so many years ago, I made her a person in the background someone who had to be carefully watched and dealt with, someone you couldn't trust, someone who might do the wrong thing, someone you had to invite because it was the right thing to do.  I did it because she hurt me, hurt people I loved.

My mother was an interesting person and people loved her, she was loved.  She chose a family of friends, my father, a lifestyle that could not include me or my children.  She wanted it all, felt she deserved it but I wouldn't let her have it, wouldn't life in her world.  It really was not a punishment just a choice on my part and a relief to her sometimes.  What I needed from her was not something she had to give and being with me made that too clear to both of us.

She had a good heart, she loved me the best way she could, she wanted to be a part of my family, she wanted and needed me to remember how hard she tried when she was young to be a mother.  I remember, I know she loved us, I know she did the best she could.

I am not missing a "mother" today because I have not had one for a long time.  I am sad because it was such a hard life for her, it was a painful journey and she held on so tight to it anyway.  She was a strong woman in so many ways, it never made sense.

She deserved a better daughter, there are things I did not do that I should have and things I said I wish I could take back.  She made me strong, I would have to be strong in this life but it also made me hard.

I waited for her to visit last night, she promised she would.  It didn't happen.

She laid in her bed looking like someone I did not recognize.  I wanted to say she looked peaceful but she didn't, she looked like she fought it to the end, thats just the way she did things.  I pray that my grandmother came to get her and she is reunited with the people who loved her.

There are things to thank her for; introducing me to the paranormal, teaching me to sew and cook, giving us silly celebrations, staying up with me when I was sick, making me that scarecrow costume in 2nd grade, filling our house with music, terrible haircuts and handmade dresses, buying me crayons, teaching me to read when I was four, telling me that I may be an ugly duckling but one day I would be a swan.

Rest in Peace mama, then wake up and do this again, I know you loved life, and I think you could rock it in a healthy body with a healthy mind.

Wooden Chest

My childhood lives in a wooden chest in my house, bits of paper all piled up, stacked in no order just random snapshots taken on different cameras over a blurry time line.  My early years are all black and white, when photo's were a one shot deal, you had to peel off some kind of film after a certain amount of time, they are all fading to soft grey as a tiny me sits between my parents on old wooden steps in front of an army owned  house on a base in Kansas.  Then they slowly turn to color with pretty white borders as my sister enters the picture, an apartment building in Hawaii, my grandmother in a big blue dress, she has come to help my mother who is sick, has a blood clot in her leg from birth control pills she forgets to take and smoking cigarettes one after the other.

My brother follows my sister after several miscarriages, and alien abduction, and my fathers discharge from the army, the photos are all yellows and browns, there is ironed hair, long side burns, and mustaches where eyeliner and greased back hair use to be. We all have home made shaggy hair cuts, sun tans, and our little house on Guadalupe Parkway is full of ashtrays and spider plants in macrame hangers, bookcases made out of cinderblocks and wood planks, we play hand-me-down Masterpiece and Yatzee on  handmade rag rug my mother made.

Our teenage years are not as well documented, we are seen in a series of photos taken with stolen or borrowed cameras, 110 film, grainy, rounded edges, Poloroid with a thick pocket of processing fluid at the bottom, glimpses of a holidays, a birthday, a trip to the beach.  We are in houses and apartments, things are falling apart but we smile we don't know anything different, looking back only the three of us understand what all that stuff in the background represents, what it it triggers in us now that we are grown up.

I found most of these photos several years ago in a closet in a fourplex we all once lived in.  It was my least favorite place, too many bad memories, it was the end of my childhood, it was the last place I lived with my family, I left there to begin my own family at the age of 18, my sister and brother stayed behind a couple more years then left to start lives of their own.  We forgot the photos until my mother was arrested, I went back for them, it is all I wanted from that place, proof.

The picture taking changes when it is my camera, well Steve's camera, one he bought in college for a class.  We take photos of vacations, my growing belly the births of our children.  Slowly we take photos of everything else, with new cameras, hundreds and hundreds of pictures that fill the rest of that wooden chest.  I took photos of my babies asleep, of them staring out windows, I dressed them up in costumes and snapped them being fairies and bunnies.  Steve recorded events, he took a heavy camera with us where ever we went and would stop us to record a moment that was lost by the stopping but I am glad we can look back and remember it.

Tonight I visited my parents, the first time in over a year.  I don't do it because it is painful for me. I don't know how to be grateful or kind, I am still angry at them after all these years for being the wrong parents, for not returning me to my real parents.  I piled my kids in the car and my husband drove me out to San Jose where they still live so that I could say good-bye to them.  My mother is dying.

I didn't bring a camera to record this milestone, I just sat with her and said all the wrong things because it was scary, because I imagined this day a million times and never did I think I would be sad.  My parents once so young and strong, so damaged, bad-ass, law-breaking, drug-taking, were old and weak, and alone.  They surround themselves with pictures in old broken frames, of them young, of people who are no longer alive, their grandchildren that they barely know.

Tonight I flashed through our lives could see it all through the lens of a camera, and tonight I am not angry.  I see these people as people, I see myself in them, my children in them.  They are where my story begins like it or not.  This woman gave birth to me, this man went to a war in Vietnam because it was a job and he was 17 and I was a baby who needed to be fed.

I won't have a picture of my mother looking like a broken bird, or my father falling apart staying alive because he doesn't want her to be alone, doing all the things for her now he never could do before, both of them living out the last of their karma.  They are not old, only in their 60's but they have lived hard lives made harder by bad choices and mental illness.

My mother is cared for by strangers, hospice nurses that come and hold her hand because I can not, because we will not because those hands hurt us.  I made her the enemy because I had to be the mother.  I held my siblings close because I didn't want her to break them.  We shut them out of our lives because the lifestyle they lived could easily leak into better lives we were working hard to give ourselves.

I see tonight that none of it matters.

I told my mom to go, to let just let go and get the hell out of here.  It feels like she had done enough, lived through enough, caused enough pain, loved the best she could and I could not stand to see her suffer.  My sister like my dad are too afraid to let go and mad at me for giving up and giving in and they see me releasing her as unkind, as discarding her, what they do not understand is that I am afraid too.

I let Elliott touch my mothers hand and when he did I felt him say to her "You are only going where I just left, you will love it there"  Noah sang songs while he softly strummed his guitar, he was not afraid, he was kind and loving, he made us all cry.  My sister reached out past her fear and told my mother she loved her.  My dad cried, got mad at me, tried to take Noah into another room and introduce him to jazz and blues and share a little of himself, connect to my son through music.

One last good bye, and by the door a wedding photo, my Uncle Bill with slicked back black hair, my grandmother with a big corsage and lipstick, my mother young, in an up-do wearing pumps and a beautiful dress, her face is mine.

Six

Stevie,

The sky is barely turning from night to morning but there seem to be a thousand birds chatting away in all the trees in our neighborhood, they woke me up, they know that today is the 19th, at least that is what it feels like.

I am remembering without effort your last day here with us in your body.  I usually slip easily into that memory, it is strong and vivid and it feels like pulling out stitches, this wound never heals, this broken place can not be repaired, it never will be but today I won't go there even though I have permission to, I won't, I can't.

There has to be a  new way to connect to you on this day, I need to find a way to celebrate instead of grieve,  I have to learn to honor you and I can not do that drowning in tears.  It's not fair to you that what hold close is the loss of you and not the beauty of the time you got to be here, all the smiles, and belly laughs, the tender late night talks, the sound of you moving through this house and your voice over the phone, your hand in mine as we drove to the next place.

You were and still are my person, my companion in this life.  I  believe we all get one true love and I was raised to believe the person who would capture my heart, save me, teach me, complete me would be a man, that romantic love was what I needed to be whole.  It isn't never was, it was you.  The love a mother feels for her child is the deepest place she will ever go, it is the highest mountain she will ever climb, it is the hardest work she will ever do, it is the easiest love she will ever experience.

When you and your sister and brothers were born something happened I can not explain it's like I fell open, parts of me were exposed, I was vulnerable, I could hide nothing.  I had to navigate differently in this world, feel things in a very different way.  All of you helped me grow, taught me life lessons that I could not have learned any other way.

When you were born I knew, I always knew...there was something different.  You were me, I was you but we our own worlds too.  You were aways so far ahead of me, you needed me, but I needed you more.  You were brave in all the places I was most afraid  You were always smarter and stronger, stubborn, and damn it you were always right and sometimes I hated that.  The thing I loved most was that you chose me, and let me love you and to this day I don't know why, you deserved so much more.

I loved waking up knowing you were in this world, I loved arguing with you, I loved sitting next to you and I loved it when you wanted me to go away at that concert in Berkeley.  I gave you space but I watched you from the balcony always protecting you but filled with pride as you swayed to the music, danced and fell in love with boys who played the piano like rock stars.

You filled my life with moments I want back, I want to live them over and over...

Where are you now Stevie?  I will make my way to the cemetery to be close to your body but where are you now?

Do you miss us like we miss you?  I pray that you are so happy, so busy, (maybe even living again in a new body) that you don't have time to miss us, we are a fuzzy memory.  I am selfish and sometimes I want to believe that you never left that you are here with us waiting and guiding us, and we will all go to heaven together.  Last year I thought maybe I could bring you home...

How can it be six years sweet girl?  I don't know how we got here, how we survived.  I am living in a world that doesn't know you.  You have a little brother who will never finger paint with you or play Guess Who.  You will never see the new kitchen, we have new Christmas decorations, and you never got to see Tangerine.  New cousins have been born, I have new friends you never got a chance to hate.  Ben brought back the Postal Service for a concert, Andrew got married after his cancer got it's ass kicked.  Our town looks different, new places to eat you would have loved.

People ask me how many kids I have...I say four ( I don't count Claire which feels wrong but she was never a child here on earth, only in my body and heart) then I have to try and explain that you are no longer here without making it sad, without seeming like I am trying to get sympathy, your death is not my calling card, being your mother is, and I am so grateful and proud.  I say I have a 27 year old my youngest daughter would be 25, my son is 13 and my baby boy is 7 months old.  I don't like to think of you as 25, in my heart you are 19, always 19.

Stevie I wish you were here, I wish you were in this bed, in this room, sleeping in until 10, I wish you had plans for the day that did not include me, that you were busy with your friends, school, work, a life you had created for yourself.  I would get a few minutes with you as you made coffee, cut up some fruit,  I would love to listen to you and your brother talk about music, you and your sister fight over who gets the shower first, watch you kiss Elliott (he would love your face).  I want to live in a world with you in it.

Today I will fight the memory of your last moments here and instead I will imagine that you are visiting from heaven and I will talk to you, share all the love I have for you, make you a part of this day in a good and positive way.

Baby girl my sweet little bunny, my friend, my daughter, my teacher, my heart, thank you, thank you for being in my life, for choosing me, for giving to me all you did, for sharing with me all your secrets, for loving me so well, for letting me love you and forgiving me when I did things wrong, for liking me anyway.

Thank you for 19 of the best years of my life...

Wait for us in heaven, be happy baby, be happy.

We are Ok Stevie, we are Ok.

I love you so very much,  "I Love you the whole world"

-mama