Dear Mom,

I think about you all the time, I just don't write. Sometimes I think that it will ruin a perfectly okay day. . . . Not that writing to you is awful, just deflating.

I was okay. I was okay for four weeks. There was a little bit of hurt but it was tolerable. Now, Mom, I don't think that I'm okay. Every part of my body hurts. Every part of my spirit hurts.

I miss your love. I miss your validation. I miss your laugh. I miss your hugs.

Love you so much Mom.

Dear Mom,

I had a really good day yesterday. But as I was trying to fall asleep I realized that the really good days are the most difficult because the contrast between my day and my night is so sharp.

But then today was rough. And all I could think of was the fact that you would understand. I wouldn't have to explain anything, you'd just... get it. And you're about the only person.

I don't know what's harder. Tomorrow I'm going to shoot for mediocrity. But you'd be so mad at me for that.



Oh Mom. It's so hard to be happy without you.

Hi Mom,

I haven't written in a few days. I'm sorry-- I wanted to see if these letters were really a collection of the things that I wish I could tell you or if I was merely seizig a creative opportunity. I think that it may be a bit of both. Pleaes forgive me.

I had a dream about you last night. We were back in the hospital -- all of us -- and you woke up from your sleep. You were rejuvinated, looking the most beautiful I had ever seen you. All you needed was some sleep to heal up and beat that cancer.

It was wonderful to see you. To hear your voice was bliss. But I wonder: is this the denial phase comming through in my subconscious?

The last thing I said to you when you were alive was that I didn't want you to go but that we were okay. That we could handle it if you had to go. To say hi to Merfy for me and to remember that I love you. That I love you so, so much.

I said this to you on the day that you died. Was this my fault?

The last thing that you said to me was to tell me that I'm beautiful. The last thing that you said to the room in general was that you were left with no dignity. I love that you're so stubborn.

I'm sick, Mom. Really sick. The last time I fell this ill was... well, I can't remember when it was but I remember you stocking up on Sucrets and Bentasil and those Vick's nasal inhalers. I was really young, I think. I hear you telling me to get my butt to the doctor. "Are your glands swollen? Is it strep?" You're asking me over and over.

I'm going to the doctor tomorrow.

My theory is, and I think you'll agree, that the world is telling me to SLOW DOWN. To process this mountain of stress that is laying on my shoulders and sort things out instead of trying to run through them. I hate this part.




Alex and I went to see Jesse Cook tonight. There was a empty seat next to me and more than twice I could swear you were there. It was so good, Mom. You would have loved it. Maybe you DID love it. I sure hope so.

Dear Mom,

I went to Parent-Teacher conferences today and heard so many wonderful things about your son. And, as expected, a few frustrating things. I wanted to report it all back to you and because I couldn't I cried my way home. I don't mean to-- I know that you're watching me and feeling completely awful about it. Please don't. It's not your fault.

I also went to that coffee place that S is always talking about. I can see why he loves it... the woman who owns it is so attentive and friendly. And it's clean! You just might like it there too.

I keep thinking "I can't believe you left me to do this" (that is, to raise your son) but I don't know if it's a real feeling or just a thought I'm supposed to have.

Also, I had one of those big global days. I tried to explain myself to Alex but the whole time I was thinking "Mom would understand."

My chin is pulling my lips down into a painful frown and I don't want to frown anymore today. I'm going to go to bed but I hope that I dream of you again.

I love you.

Dear Mom,

No letter tonight. Just love.

Dear Mom,

These have been the longest days of my life. Time without you has stretched and on some level it feels like it's always been this way. It's horrible.

Alex and I went shopping yesterday and you'd be so proud of him-- he was open to trying on everything and anything! We're close to finding some really wonderful clothes.

You'd be even more proud of Steven and Paul. I caught them having a real Father/Son moment today with real words about real things. It made my heart burst.

The wash of condolences has slowed down and already I feel farther away from you until I start writing here and a heaviness settles on my chest and tears collect in my eyes. It's good to feel this way, I think. It's what I've got left of you.

Oh Mom... we used to have so many of the same thoughts and so many of the same feelings. I knew what sort of day you were having even when we didn't speak or see one another.

I feel like part of my spirit is missing. Is this what it feels like to lose a twin, or just to lose yourself?

Dear Mom,

I sent the babysitting kids a facebook message last night. I thought that such integral members of our family needed a more personalized update instead of stumbing across your obituary on Facebook.

The outpouring of love from those kids is incredible. I don't know if you ever gave yourself enoug credit for the role that you had in their lives. Michelle told me about a letter that you sent to her ages ago-- her Mom had found it and passed it along to her; she shared it with us:


"Dear Michelle,
This week, February 12-18 is Random Act of Kindness Week. During this week we are to perform a random act of kindness, it could be a hamper of food for the poor, shoveling the side walk for a neighbour, or helping mom load the dishwasher after supper. But, for me, it is to write this note of thanks to you, Michelle.
I want to thank you for the help and kindness you show everyday to me and to all the children in my home. You are always ready to help buckle a seat belt, undo a coat button, or put toys away, even if someone else was playing with them.
Your manners at lunch are super and I appreciate hearing that you really liked your lunch today. If I need your help for anything you always jump right in to give me a hand and I never have to ask more than once. (Usually you have already seen what needs doing and have done it for me)
You are amazing, Michelle! I want to thank you for the acts of kindness you do, not just during this special week, but each and every day!
♥ Nancy"

This made me cry more than anything else. I wish I had kept more letters that you'd written me-- I wish I had more of your words to hang on to than a few work-related postits. I've turned off most sentiment and am not allowing things around the house to become things-that-Mom-touched, but I really wish that I had some of your words. Like the multicoloured letter that the tooth fairy wrote to me when I was little. It was pages long and self-affirming and I kept it in my dresser for years and years and years. It got lost in my teenage-hood, though. I should have kept better care of it.

Our whole family has been showered in love and condolences from friends both old and new. The comfort in it is not that we are loved but that every comment and every message brings me back to who you were to me before this mess. I feel like I've lost those memories and that it will take a long, long time for them to return.



I reorganized the work desk today. If you see it, please don't think it was to erase your presence. I needed to make it mine, though, so that I wasn't just sitting in your chair and doing your job. I needed my own space to do my own job because otherwise spending my days there would be too much to bear. They already were, when we had not yet lost you but I knew that we were going to lose you.

There's this sticky note stuck to the desk that you wrote to me a few months ago: "Edmonton Public School is done. <3 Mom" ... Those are all the words of yours that I can find. I kept it then because I knew that they would become precious and they are, Mom. It's just a little sticky note but I don't ever want to lose it.



I keep wanting to tell you about the amazing things that people are saying about you. I forget... but then remember.

This is not an easy thing.

Dear Mom,

I saw Dad today. He drove from Edmonton to see us. It was awkward but it wasn't what you thought it would be; he didn't ask us to move back home. I want you to know that no matter what happens, my home is here. I have never felt so deep-rooted to any place. Steven will be taken care of, too. He doesn't want to leave and if he manages to get awestruck I'll do all that I can to keep him here.

We went to the funeral home this morning to put everything in order. You're going to be cremated on Tuesday... I'm sorry that you have to wait so long.

We tried to follow your wishes - nothing fancy and nothing expensive - but it was so hard to do. I think we followed your instructions but it was difficult to do. I hate to think of you in such a simple box and hate that there's no way to ask your opinion on any of this. I want to do you justice but it's difficult to say "no, just the birch box will do" with so many more dignified options. I'm trying to remember that I can do better by you through my daily actions and my course of growth rather than the receptacle that we receive your ashes in.

I hope that we did the right thing today. It was so difficult to insist on the lowest-priced and most simple things when you deserve the very best.

Dear Mom.

My most favourite poem in the entire world has a very new meaning now:

i carry your heart with me
e. e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Dear Mom,

The whole family came over today.

I cooked "blunch" (as A called it) and we toasted you with champagne an orange juice.

I caught your nephew - so young yet so disarmingly perceptive - say that he wished he could have told you a whole bunch of things.

He also says that he'll miss truck stop dinner. A wants to know how to make your famous pizza.

I made cheddar apple muffins in your honour and put buckwheat in the pancakes because I never got to make them for you even though they're your favourite. Turns out they're my favourite, too.

I'm slowly phoning friends to tell them about your departure. Barb was the hardest but the blessing is that we're going to try to start talking more regularly. She says that she also wants her ashes to be spread with her dogs. I forgot to ask about her kids but we're talking again on Tuesday so I'll ask her then.

Tonight I'm thinking about all of the milestones of mine and S's that you're going to miss. His graduation from high school. My graduation from college. His graduation from college. My graduation from college again. My wedding (I should be so lucky). Your grandchildren, in time (we should all be so lucky). I felt the warmth of our family today and I know that at each of these milestones I will feel it again but there will be a big part of me that will pull towards you, that will think mom should be here.

I even thought that today. A family shindig is not a family shindig without you.

You have taught me to be stoic and brave and, more cherished than anything, to be resiliant.

I am being stoic and brave (until nobody is looking) and my resiliancy is surprising me. Your example is even more solid than I imagined.

Should I be fighting this more? Should I be angry with the world? Is my so-called resiliancy actually just exhaustion? I am sad - achingly, deeply sad - but I am not in denial. I am not bargianing. I am not angry.

What they don't ever tell you about the five stages of grieving is that they are not linear steps. I have been circling through those five stages since your diagnosis. Over and over. Over and over. Over and over and over and over. Sometimes all within an hour. I'm so dizzy, Mom, and sometimes I just want to get off the ride but your resiliancy is so far imbedded into me that I can't.

I will carry you with me always.

Dear Mom,

Safe journey.

I know that M ran back from wherever he was to barrel you over and give you lots of puppy-kisses. Enjoy some time with just him and don't worry about us. We're heartbroken, but we're okay.

I'll talk soon.

Dear Mom,

You held on to every moment this year and fought like a gladiator for some sporadic weeks of heath. Were we worth it?

Dear Mom,

I had a dream about you last night.

You and Nana were dressing me as if I were two years old. You had put a purple, collared shirt on me (very similar to the purple peasant shirt that you bought for me last year but with a business-casual type of collar). Over it, Nana had put a darker purple long sleeved shirt. The lighter purple shirt-sleeves were sticking out of the darker shirt and I was fiddling with them because I knew how ridiculous it looked.

You stepped back to evaluate your work while Nana continued to fiddle and fuss. She asked your opinion and you said "well, I would have put the collar up more" (referring to the shirt that you had chosen for me). Nana adjusted it and the dream went hazy.

You would read so much into this dream and we would get swept away into a conversation about my dreamworld, about my two mothers, about what a wonderful balance our three dominant personalities have managed to achieve.

I can't believe that we're losing you but I'm not fighting it, either. Am I a bad daughter? Should I be railing against this? We've been railing against it for over a year and we've had such awful luck. My heart is in denial; it hopes that you will rise from your bed a cured woman after some time of well-deserved rest. My spirit, though, is tired. Tired and guilty and horribly, terribly sad. And so I am done believing or hoping or stressing about this journey. My breast is split down the middle and I am flayed open. Life is painting me with experience and I am just lying prone, functioning at minimum capacity just as you are. I am barely here.

In awhile life's brush will leave me. I will sew myself back up -- I will be a whole woman again, but a woman painted by your life, your journey, your death and my interaction with it all.

You've been hanging on for just over a week and it's so deceptive. You'll make little noises and your eyes will flutter open and your breathing quickens when we talk to you. Are you listening? Are you there? The doctors and nurses don't seem to think so but I know that you're still in the body that has treated you so unfairly. I want to soothe you. I want to hold you and tell you that we understand if you have to let go. I think, though, that you're still fighting and I feel so guilty for not fighting with you.

Two weeks ago you told me that you wanted to try a new approach. You wanted to lie in bed and just be sick for awhile. I reasoned it out with you, encouraging the idea because your previous modus operandi wasn't working out. Was our reasoning partly responsible for your bodily deterioration?

I cannot write anymore. We'll talk tomorrow-- I'll tell you what I hope will ease your pains, I'll tell you that we've got it all under control. I'll tell you that I'll miss you but that we'll be okay. I don't know if I'll be telling you the truth or not.