I used to love walking into your room in the summer time when I lived at home. You had just put fresh new sheets on your bed, your skin was still damp from lathering up in your favorite lotion, your breath smelled like toothpaste, and your hair was tossed up in your towel until it finagled its way out of your hair during your sleep. You would lay in bed with a nighty on and wigwam socks and somehow look flawless at midnight on a warm weathered night. Windows always slightly cracked open at the bottom, room smelling like triple lanolin and roses with a touch of whatever vanilla musk you used to spritz around your vanity. I would come and sit on the side of your bed and talk to you and ask you why you watch the most disturbing shit before bed and before I knew it I was laying on the other side of your big cozy cool bed watching Dr. G the medical examiner with you until 2am. You were so smart. You were so fun. You were always so much different than my friends’ moms. So cool. When memories sneak up like this on me I can’t help but want to write them down and pray on all that is holy that wherever you are you know that when I’m laughing I know you’re laughing with me. Sometimes I can even hear you in my head. When I miss you I know you’re trying with all your might to hug me or tuck my hair behind my ear or scratch the top of my back between my shoulder blades like you always would. 
Today marks eight. Months. Eight long months since you’ve been gone. Since I’ve smelled your scent. Since I’ve heard your voice – live, and not over a video. Since I’ve touched you. Since I’ve been able to kiss your cheek and tell you I love you a hundred thousand times. I hope you know that some days it does feel easier in my heart to go on living without you. Until I actually think about how I haven’t cried as much and then a pang of guilt and of course, sadness. But it’s easier to remember the normal, happier times and not just the very bitter and gutting end. I still can’t believe it when I write things like “the end” pertaining to your existence, how sick my heart feels. But it is certainly not as heavy every day like it once was. I feel you with me in this house. I know you were here today with us outside when Mav said he smelled you. I know you’re smiling when I let Mav help me cook, probably while simultaneously hyperventilating that he’s so close to the stove. And oh this new baby boy. I know you’re holding him close to you right now. And as much as I wish you were physically here to help calm my heart when it gets all wild like it does, I couldn’t ask for you to be in a better place than already bonding with my baby to be. Next month is March. Your birthday month. Not mine, or even Mav’s. But yours. I promise to live out loud for you in the next few weeks. To make you proud and as always, to take no shit. To love my family, and to make sure my meatballs are airy. Ugh. I just miss you so much. I hope you always feel how much love is stuck here on earth in the wake of your departure. If I could shoot it up in a moon beam to you wherever you are I would. And I do. I love you my mama. The one and only queen ❤