It’s 10:00 on New Year’s Eve and I just finished a dinner cooked by my pretty great husband. I couldn’t help but to start sobbing over my plate once I made a realization. As happy as I am to see this year go, I can’t help but feel like I have to shut the book on the last year my mother was alive. I still can’t explain the anxiety I get when I have to write things like that about her. I still haven’t found the words or the strength to actually put in writing or in language how her being gone has affected me and affects me every day. They say you don’t ever understand the meaning of the word until it happens to you. I’ve been able to explain love, loss, excitement, stress, sadness and other emotions with no problem. However tonight I felt the exact emotion that is bittersweet. I think of all the things to come to me in the next calendar year and how sweet they will be, but it certainly won’t be without some pain absorbed into and then released from my heart every time I wish my mom was part of my future. I don’t see a day where I will accept my new reality, but I have found the day to accept that inside 2016 I have learned more than I ever have inside any other year, month, hour. And because I know that knowledge moves you forward, I’m choosing to move my mom forward with me in a different way. I will continue to love you like you needed to be loved while you were still here on earth. I had 16 very bittersweet days that I was allowed to love you without limits, like a dog loves his owner. Unconditionally, and free of judgement. Pure, like a baby who needed her mother for absolute survival. Straightforwardly, so you knew exactly how much you meant to me, and mean to me still. Innocently, so you understood how you instilled the best qualities in me and that I would carry it on for the rest of my days. 
Though it’s hard to say I have found any good inside these last 365 days, I have a sense of goodness. I have a heart that beats for others, a soul that I like to share with those who are deserving of my light, and a mind that is open and evolving because you always taught me how to speak my mind. All because you were my mother.
Because you are still my mother. And I will always need you. I’ll need you every time something good happens, every time I feel like crying, when I find out what we’re having, when I’m looking up colors for the nursery, when I’m on my way to the hospital, and when I hold that sweet and gentle baby that you are holding onto so safely right now, I’ll know you are still here preparing me, and walking right beside me every step of the way.
Because of you, and essentially because the way you loved me this last year and all the years before it, I’m ready. I’m entering my first year without you being just a phone call away at midnight, and as much as I hate that I know I’m prepared. Though it’s not an invite for any more bad to enter my life, it’s a promise that I will continue to be more like you. More like you would want me to be. I will speak my mind and say goodbye to whatever doesn’t make me feel like I did when I was with you. I’ll buy the shoes, eat the chocolate, and love and take care of me so my family has me around for a veryyy long time. I want to be just like you. It will never be easier, and I’ll miss you in between the seconds for all of time. I’ll carry on every tradition you ever taught me and tell my children about you daily. You’re the queen mama, and heaven will be partying tonight. Just don’t keep everyone up too late! You have the tendency to do that, I know 👑
My resolution? In 2017 I’m gonna try something different and put me first. I’ll keep surprises a secret but nothing else; and spread love everywhere I go. The things that some people think keep this world spinning are actually the things that keep this world stuck. For me, I’ll focus less on taking, and more on generosity. Less hate more love. Less betrayal more honesty. Less sickness more health. Less focus on money, more on success. Less worry, more prayers. Less death, more life. Less walking away, more holding on. Less toxicity, more positivity. Not throwing people out, more protecting the people who need me most. Less damage, more rebuilding. Less evil, more Jesus. I will become a mother all over again, I will fall in love with my husband a thousand times, lean on my family, make my mother proud, and continue to put my growing family above all other things. This past year has taught me exactly who I want to be and who really loves me and I’m gonna love those people like it’s my last day on earth, because it damn well could be 🖤👑✨