Missing Mom

Dear Mom,

It's been so long since I've heard your voice. Almost 3 years since I've gotten a letter from you in the mail. Forever since I felt your touch. I remember times when you called and I didn't want to answer the phone. Times where I didn't open your letters right away, even knowing that the coupons inside were expiring. What I wouldn't give to see your number show up on my caller ID, or to see your familiar script on an envelope in the mailbox.

I was looking through my letter box today, it's the mate to the one I bought you all those years ago. It's packed full of letters, pictures, postcards, and drawings that you've sent me over the years. There are even a few "Rosie" comics (they still make me laugh and cry at the same time) and I found my stories. The Princess Adventures that you wrote for me. I still have all 8 chapters, all folded neatly and stored in one of the original envelopes with the return address that of the villain, Droger.

You had such an incredible imagination!! I didn't really understand then - but I do now. I know the stories weren't just stories. They were love letters to your daughter, your only child. I'm sorry I didn't get it while you were still here so we could talk about it.

So many letters. In different color inks, most on different types of paper. Some with little scribbles and drawings, others so full of words the ink seeped through the page, making the other side hard to read. All in your slanted, fancy script that for so many years of my growing up, I couldn't read. I look at it now and it's so beautiful, so classy, so you.

I found one of the letters you wrote right after Nine Eleven. It's dated 9/23/2K1 at the end of the letter I saw something that caught my eye. You never were one for too much optimism, very realistic was my Mom. But this .. oh how I cried when I saw it. Now, as I type this, I am having trouble seeing the wavering words through the tears that I don't dare let fall until I am finished.

You were right, Mom. You were always right, but no one ever saw it. I never saw it. Not until it was too late. Now, I sit here looking at a page out of the scrapbook I made after you died, and I think to myself - I wish I could just call, to say, I love you.

Loving you with all my heart,
S.P.H.B.
(Sugar-Pie, Honey-Bunch)