It’s been nearly a month since Madre died. I miss her at unexpected times. When something aggravating at work happens, I think, This is when I would call to talk to mom. I think that when something happens with my stepdaughter. When I see the stack of my pajama bottoms in my hope chest, I remember she got almost all of them for me. She is everywhere in my house. Coffee mugs, clothes, trinkets. I cry when I need to. I cried and cried on my drive home from work yesterday. It was a combination of things, but when I think back on that time with mom in the hospital in April, when she was dealing with her pain, I wish I had had an inkling of how fast things would progress toward the end. It breaks my heart to think of her looking to the future when the future was only a week in a half longer. But this is me looking at this as a surviving loved one. She made it clear that she didn’t want to know anything about timeframes, and so she didn’t. But it makes me sad that the timeframe was so short after all. But there is never, ever enough time.

I think about death/talk about death a lot. Not in a morbid way (at least I don’t mean to), but in a Look Around And See How Beautiful Things Are Because They Or I Or You May Be Gone Tomorrow. I want to hug Spence all the time. I want to stare into my dogs’ cute faces and rub their bellies all the time. Everything is slipping away and I want to absorb it it while I can. It’s not a bad way to approach life…to know time is limited…but it can lead to a touch of melancholy at times.