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.