One Year

My Sweet Momma,

      Today is that day: April 8th. The day you left us to be with Jesus. The day that I will never forget. Your last day on this Earth. The last day I was able to experience your human self. The last day I heard your voice, hugged you and told you that I loved you forever and always. Today is different. It is now April 8, 2014, the end of the first year without you here. There have been 365 days of heartache that will not relent. As I was driving yesterday I became overwhelmed at just how long a year really is. A whole year. When did that happen?

      Momma, as I sit here a year later, I need you to know that I miss you with absolutely every fiber of my being. I miss everything about you. I miss the way you danced when you knew you were right about something. Or the way you recorded every single show on TV, because they were all "your shows". I miss how you enjoyed eating potato chips and bananas and chasing that with milk. I miss your smile and your laugh. I miss the way you always sounded so calm when you were talking on the phone even if you were in a lot of pain that day. I miss your advice and ideas, although, you and I both know I never liked them at the time. I miss your voice, your hugs, and your "I love you's". I miss calling you Coco, 400 times each day. I even miss that way you said, "WHAT!", every time that I said, "MOM!". I miss so many more things than just those. I miss it all.

      I feel so blessed that on the morning of April 8, 2013, after the nurse listed your condition as "actively dying", you still managed to get out a soft and oh so quiet, "I love you Kelsey". Those were the very last words that I ever heard you say to me. I had to listen closely because your voice was tired and your body was worn. Momma, you longed for rest that you knew would only come if you were in Heaven. I remember how you said that you wished you could just go for a short while to rest and then come right back to us. You felt sorry for being sick. You felt sorry because you knew that you'd have to leave too soon. I felt sorry too. I felt sorry because I wanted you to stay anyway. If it were up to me you would still be here but thankfully God knows better and He wanted you with him, free of pain.

      I remember being so conflicted up until the moment you passed about whether or not I wanted to see you after you took your last breath. It worked out in the best way that it could have. I really wasn't sure what moment would be your last breath. The process of dying is slow. Early in the afternoon we broke the sliding glass door on our back porch to move your hospital bed outside. It was a very warm, sunny, spring day, with the temperature peaking at 79 degrees that afternoon. I only know that because I just Googled it since I remember that it was just so warm that day. We spent all afternoon taking turns sitting by your bed on the porch and singing songs to you. Sometime around late afternoon, we all gathered around your bed. I was sitting on the floor, on your right, with my head and arms on your legs. I had my head facing the creek, away from you because I had decided that I wanted to remember you as alive. At some point around 5:30PM, the others told me that I should probably go inside. I said, "right now?" and they said, "yes". I knew then that you had passed away. I walked inside and sat on the couch and as the family started to walk in the house I just started sobbing. Although, I didn't see your face after you passed, I know that I was hugging you as you crossed from Earth into Eternity. I wonder if your soul floated up above your Earthly body and looked down and waved to us as you left for Heaven. I guess one day I will experience that too.

      I don't just miss all of the things about you from the past. I miss all of the things from the future too. I'm sad for all of the things that we both will miss now that you are gone. I know that you will never read these letters but I dream that you do anyway. A dream is a wish that your heart makes, right? You will miss out on so many things in my life. It's probably pretty accurate to say that I will live more of my life here on Earth without you than I did with you, Momma. I will miss not having you around for all of the many milestones and events in my life. I try not to think about getting married someday, or what jobs I will hold, or where I will live, or any of that because it makes me too sad to think that you just won't be here. I miss going shopping with you or going to dinner with you and I'm sad that we can never do that again. The truth is, while you were sick those occasions became fewer and far between. cancer (see what I did there Mom? no capital c) is brutal because it takes the life right out of people even when they are still very much alive. Your life was filled with a passion and energy that no disease could ever take away. As I get older and I come across times that I wish you were with me, I'll look up to the sky and know that you'd be smiling back if you knew all about it.

      Life is so strange, Momma. No expensive education, self-help book, or internet discussion board can really prepare you for this kind of a thing. I would never wish this pain upon anybody. If someone had told me in the beginning of 2011, while I was a senior in college, that in just two years I would lose you, I would have told them that just isn't possible. Not because the world is broken and unfair or because cancer can literally choose anybody, but it wouldn't be possible because I just wouldn't know how to live without you. Here I am, in 2014, an entire year after you've passed away and I'm wondering how I did it. How did I get out of bed 365 times and not get to talk to you for one second of any of those days. I really have no idea.

      I suppose some people say that God never gives you more than you can handle. I totally think He gives us more than we can handle. I cannot do this all by myself. The pain is unreal and at times, it has been completely insurmountable. I lost count of the number of nights in which I cried myself to sleep over the past year because I missed you so much. On those nights, I simply cried to God and asked Him to ease the pain, just until morning. And on just a few of those nights, I just kept whispering, "Mommy, I miss you". I'm certain those nights will happen countless more times. Mommy, I admire the way that you trusted God. You even said once, that you weren't scared of the journey because you felt so at peace with God. I guess people may think I should have had some sort of revelation by now in my relationship with Christ but really I'm as lost as ever. I haven't learned the best way to grieve after losing you or the best way to make myself feel better. And I certainly haven't figured out why all of this happened. I have every right to be angry with God but I am not. I haven't been once. I know that is not for everyone though. Momma, oh how I would love to know the conversations you had with God on your bad days here on Earth. I cannot even begin to imagine what your conversation with God was like when you entered the gates of Eternity. I have asked God, 'why me?', so many times but it's not for me to know. I think that is part of the reason why I am not mad at God, because I have accepted that I will never know God's entire plan. You had better be sure Momma, that when I get to Heaven, I'm going to have a word with Him before I come find you.

      Momma, I still have no idea how to be brave. I can't write a self-help book about it, I can't post on an internet board about it, and I certainly am not qualified to write a blog about it. Yet, here I am. I think waking up every day, when all I want do to is be in Heaven with you, is being brave enough. As the years continue, maybe I will learn what it means to be brave. And maybe I will never really know. One thing is for sure, I cannot make it through the years without trusting God and believing in my heart that His plans are bigger and better than my selfish desires. I mean really, if mine were bigger and better, you'd still be here.

      My heart is still so heavy and the pain is still very real. There are no recently missed calls from you on my phone or emails in my inbox, and there never will be. I'll never ever see you again in this home, or in Pennsylvania, or in the United States, or anywhere on this Earth. I'll only hear your voice when I watch old home movies. Someday it will be hard to remember everything about you. That is completely terrifying. I know that I will always remember that I love you. I am absolutely positive that I love you more today than I did last year on April 8, 2013. I can't explain how that is possible since I haven't seen you or talked to you, but I feel it in my heart. I have no idea where the past year has gone. You know Momma, they say, 'the days are long but the years are short'. Oh, how that is so true. Some of the days have been terribly painful and filled with sadness, and those were the days that seemed to never end. Then they did, and now it has been a year. I only had 23 years and 10 months with you on this Earth. Those years flew by. Especially, the first 22 of them because we took our time together for granted. Or at least I took it for granted. After you became sick, I stopped wishing long or stressful days away and I desired to spend as much time with you as I possibly could. We are human, and we can't help what we don't know. It seems so silly now, that I didn't show my love to you as much as I should have. I was young and naive and really, those are horrible excuses. The best part, is that you loved me anyway. Even more than that, God loves us anyway. More than we can love each other. My love for you is of great magnitude but it is nothing compared to how God loves us. I know He loves us because He picked you as my Momma. And I know that He loves us because He sent Jesus to live and then die for us so that we may not only join Him in Heaven after our death, but that we may be reunited with those whom we loved on Earth.

      Momma, I will see you again. This is not where it ends. How sweet it is, to live each day knowing that I will get to hug you again. I am sad because it could be a painfully long time, but the next time I see you, I'll never have to say good-bye again. We will be together, forever in Eternity, with God. I can't even begin to imagine what it will be like to see you, without pain and filled with joy that only life in Christ can bestow. Your body was so frail and worn last April 8th. I really do dream about what it will be like to see you, with your new life. Your earthly body was holding you back and it caused your soul to feel tired at times. You always turned to God to find that peace and rest. I wish had gotten more time with you, because I feel as though I am missing out on the opportunity to learn from one of the smartest people I've ever known.

      You said that one of the reasons you weren't ready to leave is because you still had so much to teach us. I wanted to be your very best student, to soak up every thing I possibly could. I watched you fight that cancer with everything you had. I remember those mornings before chemo when you and I would stand in the foyer and tell cancer to "pound sand". Or we would talk about how you were going to "kick cancer's butt today". I occasionally wonder if you engaged in those pep talks more for me than you ever did for yourself. I bet if walls could talk, I'd know that you knew for a long time before you told me, that you weren't really going to beat the cancer on this Earth. Mommy, I can't thank you enough for being so brave in those moments for me. You fought that cancer with courage and trust. You were fierce in your adversities and you never let anyone know if you were actually scared. Were you scared, Momma? You also taught us how to die with grace and dignity and a sense of peace that could only come from knowing that you would have new life in Heaven. Momma, that is brave.

      As the final day of our first year without you draws to an end, we rest assured that you are well. You are happy and healthy. I know that you still love me just as much as you did last April 8th, and you will love me until the end of time. I know so, because you said that you would love me from Heaven. You told me to "never ever forget that". I love you too. I won't ever be able to stop. Although I feel as though part of my world died with you, my life continues here on Earth. Just as God had with you, He has beautiful plans for me, to give me hope and a future. One day, on a date and in an hour that only God can know of, He will call me home too. I will be reunited with you Momma, and my heart will no longer be broken. Our story will continue there, in the presence of God and forevermore. Although I'll spend countless more hours dreaming of what it will be like to see you again, I know it will be far greater than anything that my human mind can imagine. Until that day, I will carry you with me.

Love you to infinity and beyond,
Kelsey