Thursday, January 5, 2012

Dear Mom


It has been almost a year since you died. Those last few months I spent with you were a blessing I will always treasure. I have slowly been going through your things and never knew what a pack rat you were. I hope you don't mind that I tossed out those little wooden spools of thread that had about 4 feet of thread left on each one. I kept a few packets of sewing needles, but didn't think I'd ever use 85 packets of them. Right now I am looking a bag you kept of maps. Roseville, San Francisco city guide, USA, Santa Cruz, Lake Tahoe, Florida, Sarasota, Michigan, Detroit, Lakeport, Placerville, Grass Valley , and ....India? I remember stories about many trips you took - the white sand in Sarasota, many trips to San Francisco and Michigan, but I never heard about India. Did you ever go there and I never knew about it? Did you want to go there? I'll never know. I think I will give these maps to a thrift store. I have kept them in a bag in my closet for 11 months now. These were records of your trips, your stories. Some will live on in me, but little by little I keep letting you go. Not that I love less or miss you less, it's just the reality that you are no longer here. I have a box with some of my own maps that I will hold on to - and I imagine that one of my children will be going through them one day tracing my journeys and wondering whether to hold on to them or give them away. I hope they will smile as they remember stories I've told them or trips we took together, and then let them go as I am yours.

I miss you.