Dear Mom,
Every anniversary brings different feelings. In the first years it was fear. The fear that I wouldn’t make it past another August 14th. Being afraid the emotions would drown me because I hadn’t learned how to swim in them. Then six years turned into nine years and all that fear started burning down into anger. Anger doesn’t hurt you as badly but it cauterizes wounds and leaves deep scars. You think anger protects you from everything else because the shock has passed and you’re left with, “why did you leave me with all this pain?” Ten years was a mixture of joy and sadness. I survived a decade but it was a decade you should’ve been here to witness.
This morning I woke up and wondered what new emotions 12 years would bring. I sat on the edge of my bed and closed my eyes, waiting for them to greet me. But there was no sensation. No jolt that started the tears or the rage that has me banging my head against the wall. All I felt was aching.
Aching is when the bruises, shattered heart, deep cuts, and swollen eyes that grief gives you are healed just enough to quell any sharp pain. Those wounds don’t fully heal. They build on top of each other until one day they’ve become ache. The dull throb you feel in your bones like a fatigue from too many late nights or restless sleeps. Ache is somewhere between nostalgia and devastation. It’s a hangover from grief.
For the most part I can walk through life experiencing things and building memories authentically. I feel joy and gratitude. The laughter with my friends is real. I have hope for the future and imagine new chapters ahead. There’s sadness and anger for other things besides you. My range of emotions still exists and creates the personality the people in my life know and love.
Then one day I’ll be walking down the street and see a mom with her little girl eating ice cream together. They’re laughing and that little girl thinks her mom is the best thing in the world, (besides that ice cream cone). All of a sudden the ache hits. It starts in your heart and spreads through every part of your body like a soreness. You can’t move and now you’re the weirdo stopped on the street staring at this pair. The ache makes you want to rush up to that little girl and say, “do you have any idea how lucky you are?? Remember this ice cream forever.”
I’ve been feeling so many aches lately. Listening to the speeches my friends’ moms give at their weddings. Hearing their stories of seeing their daughters try on wedding dresses and not believing something that beautiful could’ve come from them. Going to dinners to meet parents and listening to their memories of walking along the Chicago River together or taking a trip to Michigan. Every time I see what we could’ve had Mom it aches. We lost so much. It was more than losing you. It was everything we should’ve shared.
The worst part of ache is it’s mixed with craving. When you want something so badly it turns into need. I look at my friends, strangers on the street, I envy them. I envy things they have that I know I never will. There’s just a little bit of resentment that’s within no one’s control. It’s not just the big things like being at my wedding or when I have kids. The little envies make the ache the heaviest. A kiss on a child’s forehead, an embarrassing text that a friend laughs off. A sweater their mom picked out because they thought they’d look cute in it. All the small things that build up to an infinite amount of love lost.
Usually I can find some way to heal at the end of these letters. It’s the catharsis I need each year. Today though all I feel is ache for you. I guess it’s better than the debilitating sobs but there really isn’t any relief. The ache eventually settles but it resides in my body. If this is the cost of having loved you so much then I will pay it. For every moment to come when the ache releases, know it’s because I will never stop loving you.
Forever,
Marissa
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