Dear Allie, I want you to know that you are all around me this month, this day, this moment. It's not just the promise of spring, the buds on "your" tree about to open, the vibrant colors of hope everywhere we turn, the colors we now wear as the days grow longer, shedding our dark and dreary, for the bright and cheery. It's you. It's the signs. It's the images of your face, the printing of your name, the letter "A", the people you have touched, whether you know it or not, whether they even know it or not. It's the convertible you drove, it's the soccer ball you dribbled down the field, it's the pictures I find, it's the stories others tell me, it's the cookies I bake, it's the cake I make, it's the gifts I wrap for others because you are leading me to bring spring to their souls, it's the donation to your scholarship, it's the cookbook's finishing touches, it's the ground you walked on, and the air you breathed. It's the full moon, and the still of night, it's the warmth in the air, so much so that we can open the windows one minute, only to hurry to close them the next, for the wind shifted, and all of life changed, in an instant. It's the smell of lilac, and the lyrics to an old song, a new song, one I shared, one I wish I could share, with you. It's the way in which you taught me to love a dog, the way in which you showed us how to NOT sweat the small stuff. It's the way in which you liked to be lazy, that could almost drive me crazy! It's the way you could turn to casual, to sparkly and girlish in the blink of an eye! It's your comfortable way with children, with adults, with people. It's your signature smile like the one I posted today, as you clung to your father's arms. It's your emergence from a little baby to amazing woman, so quickly, that I thought I blinked my eye.
It's as though I have to remind myself that you were really here. Yes, I've said it over and over again that I must say out loud that you are really gone. But sometimes, the circumstances are so surreal, that I often wonder, were you really here? Were you, like the girl in the rear view mirror, the one whose eyes penetrated mine, a figment of my imagination, or were you really REAL? Were you, like the words printed on the car next to mine that day when Shawnee and I went to the store, were you real, like them, spelling out your name on the passenger side, written exactly as you would write it, complete with the heart over the i...were you real, or were you a figment of my imagination? Were you really here, like the pink sunset that so many called about on the anniversary of your passing, like the letter "A" in the sky on that significant morning when I took that walk. Were you really here?
I can hear you saying that of course you were real...you were here...as are the signs, the images, the young woman who stopped me at the stop sign to ask if I was Allison's mother...she had read your caringbridge site, and had an interview at your oncologist's office the very day you passed away from us, and the first person she heard about was you...AND she got the job, AND she feels you are her guardian angel. You were real like the young man at the Dierberg's who stopped me and told me I had the nicest, warmest smile, much like that of a young woman he went to Meramec Community College with a few years ago...hmmm...could that have been you? I often wonder. Maybe. Stranger things would and could happen! You were real, and still are. Just different. You are as real as the mother who met me through another young man's caringbridge site, who now mourns her own precious Erin, and who shares her daughter through her own blog, giving us all a chance to know her, no, not in this life, but in her eternal life, her everlasting life. You are as real as the woman who sat over lunch and coffee right here in our home, trying to make sense of how to move, just move, after the death of her daughter to breast cancer. You are real and the signs, the people who have come into my life, the people who have stayed in my life, the circumstances are real, too.
I cannot explain the tightrope I now walk, balancing between real, surreal. Some of this, most of it, seems like a dream, a vision, a spiritual awakening. I see you, I feel you, I know you in new and profound, poignant, ways. It's not what I thought it would be, it's not at all how I envisioned it to be...I am learning, I am seeking, I am trying. I am living. Sometimes through a fog. Sometimes without comprehension of time. Often with a vagueness that tells me something is missing. And always with a heavy heart. Always.
It is March, the signs are real, the promise is real, and there is hope. Thank you for that, love, Mom
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