Dear Mom,

Do you remember how hard the beginning of last year was for me? I was so unsettled and unsure.

It was confusing for me to be so unmoored. I spent so much time trying to figure out what had me so out of sorts... hoping that if I could figure it out I would start to feel more secure. 

Only now am I beginning to recognize that being a mother and having a mother who was dying was overwhelming in a way that I was not equipped to handle... then.

I miss you so much mom. Death sucks for the people left behind. So many times I have wished that I could call you to talk... or that I didn't have to explain death to J... and myself. 

But then I remember that you were sick. Sick enough that you would have likely spent the rest of your life dying from the Leukemia had your heart not failed and that seems like the worst of all possibilities. You would have hated "living" in a hospital. I would have hated that too.

I miss you mom. I'm figuring things out without you and I wish I could thank you for everything that you ever did for me that made me capable.

Love,

Nicole