Dear Mom

Recently, I was discussing with a friend how time feels elastic. That sometimes things move so fast and sometimes so slow – but also that you can feel both at the same time. It’s exactly how I feel on the second anniversary of your death.

It was just a minute ago that you left us, but it’s also been forever.

Bryan is nearly a year in at his new job, the one you never even heard about. Dex is preparing his schedule for Senior year and looking at colleges. In a lot of ways, I am in the same place since you passed, which is strange – but I suppose has given me time to process.

We miss you.

Another friend has been sewing and knitting a lot lately. You would have enjoyed seeing her creations.

She invited me to come learn how she does her thing … and I chuckled.

Remember that time you tried to teach me how to knit? I am pretty proud that we didn’t end up actually angry at each other, but Bryan was definitely hiding in the other room. When I wasn’t doing what you wanted, you grabbed my hands and made them move “the European way.”

But sewing was always a talent of yours that I coveted. When Jenny helped me clean out your house, she gathered some of your sewing leftovers and put them in a sweet mason jar that I now keep in my office. She did the same for parts and pieces of games we played as children.

Not that I needed the reminder, but they help me think of you every day.

I loved our homemade Halloween costumes. I wish I had a photo of my favorite, Raggedy Ann, when you sewed individual yarn after yarn into a cap for the hair.

There was one year that I had pneumonia and I was out of school for more than a week. I languished on the couch, more sick than I ever remember being in childhood, and you sheepishly walked out with something behind your back.

You had quickly sewed a doll for me and were embarrassed because it wasn’t “all that good.” (OK, and let’s be honest, it was pretty simple and sloppy.) But you were a single mom, working full-time, and you made me a doll because I was sick.

Much more than the Raggedy Ann costume, I wish I had that doll.

Love you, Mom.