15 years.

It has been 15 years today you left us.

It feels simultaneously like yesterday and a million years ago, however that is possible.

15 years since I was juggling the joy of a new-found pregnancy with grief of watching you fade away.

15 years since I watched you take your last breath, leaping into a place I can only imagine.

15 years since the sky dropped huge fluffy flakes of snow straight down in a deafening silence that I still remember.

15 years since I watched my Father carry you out and over the threshold he had once carried you in.

There is so much I didn’t know then, and so much I wish you now knew. LIke the path my life has taken, the adventure it has proven to be, but mostly our children.

You will never be more real than the people they read about in books. You will only be stories to them. They will never know you were the best hugger. They will never know how you appreciated jokes, and the more off-color the better, though you would pretend to be offended or shocked… we all knew better. They will never know how you can be small but so mighty at the same time.

They will never know that you were the best cheerleader anyone could ever have.

You will never know that my own path through motherhood has created so much I wish I could share with you. How I appreciate you in so many different ways than I could have possibly back then. I have so many questions, like how did you not ever just get in the car and keep driving… never to stop. There were 5 of us for God’s sake!!! I have only 3 and am barely maintaining sanity.

There are so many conversations that will never happen, and for that I still grieve….

I have friends with Moms up there with you… I hope you have all found each other, because we have found each other down here. We talk, we share, we cry…

You were the best, Mom. I hope you know that.

I hope you knew that.