Conversation With Mom 20

Mommy dearest,

It's been a while. My birthday and dad's birthday have both passed. Celebrations such as this nowadays lackluster and feel incomplete without you. Although I always feel the loss of you on a daily basis, on special occasions such as this the dearth of your presence is felt a hundredfold more.

Mom, I would like to say that a year and a half after you've gone that we've moved on. That we have adjusted and are doing well enough without you. But such was the impact you had on our lives that even after all these time have passed, we still find it impossible to pretend that we are just fine without you.

Dad especially have been really morose lately thinking about you. He feels lost without you to anchor him. You were the reason why he had to stay strong. You were the reason he fought so hard to live a righteous life. And now you are gone and it's like he doesn't know what's left for him to do. He does not seem to see any purpose behind his existence now.

I don't know how to rectify dad's dwindling spirit.

I know I'm telling you about how dad is coping without you, but that does not mean that abang, along and I aren't as badly affected.

I was cleaning the yam today and I recall how it was a task that you had always undertaken and I felt a sharp pain in my chest as I internalize the fact that it is a task that I have to take over. That never again will I see you striping the outer yam skin to clean the yam.

Mom, I miss you so much. At this moment as I write this, tears are threatening to fall. Today is a bad day. Where missing you is concerned that is. There are days when missing you gets too much that I just have to give in to my misery and cry for losing you,

Mom, is there no magic dust that you can sprinkle over me while you watch over my sleeping self that would    take away this debilitating pain I feel at the thought of you?

Life is so empty without you. This house feels so empty without you.

I miss your gentle smile, your soft-spoken demeanor, your sleeping form in the corner of the bedroom, your pleading voice as you asked me to pull your gray hair...

What I would give to deny you yet again your request of pulling your gray hair, only to hear you asking me again and again to please pull your hair.

I miss you Mom.

I wonder how you are faring now. What your soul is subjected too. If you are still watching us from wherever you have gone to.

I'm sorry if I didn't look after you well enough while you were ill Mom. I don't know what I could have done that would have made a difference. I watched you suffer for 46 days and although it saddens me that you are no longer here, I was glad that your suffering saw an end.

Mom... if I could just hug you one more time and tell you how much I love you and how much you made a difference in my life, how you helped shaped me to be the woman I am today and if I could only see your smile one more time.... Mom, there's not a day that passes by that I don't wish you are still around.

There are even days when I would look up expecting to see you looking back and me only to realize that what I was feeling was just a glimpse from my memory.

I love you. I miss you. Always.

Al-Fatihah.