Half way.

   There is something about Fall that feels just right. It's summer's book end. It puts a neat finish on our hot and sunny days. We put all the things away; the pools, the toys, the outdoor pillows and umbrellas, the canopies, the hammocks. It's like the beginning of a do-over. Winter comes to make sure we appreciate warm breezes and the color green when they come back around again.
   This is where we are in time today. In one month and one week, it will be my birthday. I will be forty two years old. It is not a significant year in a general sense, but for me it marks time in a way that makes me want to push back. Two months after my birthday will be the twenty first anniversary of when my mother died, when I was twenty one years old. And I will have been alive as long without her as I had been with her.
   It is inevitable. As long as I am living. That day was going to come. And it is better to be alive for sure, than to not be here to see that day. But it is a new milestone in my life and in my loss.
   I know it has been such a long time. I know because like anyone you haven't seen or spoken to in twenty one years, she feels so very, very far from me. So distant. I remember her the way I remember high school or college. Moments, events, sounds. But so much is lost to me. And every year that passes, it seems more is lost. She is further and further away.
   In some ways, I like to think she is very close to me still, in whatever way she can be. My favorite and most tangible way is when I hear her voice come out of my mouth. A sound she would make, or her laugh, or something she would say, just how she would say it. She is closest to me then. Because I am made of her, she lives in me.
   And I like to think in whatever form she takes now, she watches over me and stays close to me. I do hope so. Even though I can't see her or feel her.
   People like to say this to me. Encouraging me not to feel too badly because she is with me all the time. Perhaps she is.
   But her body is not here. Her voice is not here. Her life is not being lived anymore. I cannot see her hold my babies. I cannot call her on the phone for advice. I cannot hold her in my own arms. And I cannot feel her arms around me. I cannot make her laugh. Or make her mad. I don't know what she would have thought of all of things we have here in the future or what she would have done with them. I cannot read all the books she would have written. I cannot spend any holidays at her house with my family. I will never see her have a conversation with my husband. All and each of these losses are tremendous to me. Especially not seeing her with my sons. If I could pick one thing. If I could only have three minutes with her, I would just want to see her hold Desmond and Sonny.
   Does it sound so stupid that part of me, maybe the little girl in me, has repeatedly had moments of thinking, she is not coming back. Realizations. Over and over. She's not coming back. I will never see her with my children. I do not get that gift. And every day she is further from me.
   I am afraid it may seem melodramatic. It may sound so. It may be to say these things out loud to people. But I would imagine that anyone who has lost a parent, feels the same. Or someone so close to them. And to say it out loud, sets some of this weight on the table. Frees me just a little. Enough to be worth whatever you may think of me for saying so.
   When it crosses my mind, it is just that. Like a car passing by that leaves me a little anxious or a little melancholy, a little lost for a moment. Then I am distracted  by life again and time moves on.
But I wanted to take a minute to sit still to acknowledge this approaching moment. One that feels like a step off a cliff into my own existence. Losing my mother was like watching my anchor line snap and run off the bow at a fast clip, disappearing into the sea. This feels bigger. And I will adjust. As we all do. We find other ways to anchor. We find new ways, new homes, new families, new hands to hold, new lives to witness, new loves, new selves.
   To sit still and feel this moment, is heart breaking. Her illness and her death and all of the grieving that has come since, has been a vast collection of heart breaking moments. To have had such a love, to watch it go and to go on without it, has been painful. I would do anything to change it. I would do anything to save her. And it is too late.
   I am only two years away from the age she was when she found out she had cancer. I am six years away from the age she was when she died. I tell myself that I am not her. I count all the ways I am different from her, all the ways my life has been different. Please let me live to be an old lady. Please let me raise my boys.
   I think for today, these thoughts and moments, will have to wait.
   I am bracing myself.
   In the end, this twenty first anniversary will be another moment passed. It already exists somewhere in time. God willing. I will meet it there. I will take that step forward and keep walking as I have been. As some other creature. Some other me, that kept going. Because I want to be there in the future, for as long as I can. With my broken and still full, heart.