Despite the hustle and bustle of this holiday season, the world is a little extra quiet today; covered in a blanket of snow as the rain drizzles over it to make for a perfect kind of feeling. I don’t know that the feeling is all sad but for lack of a better explanation I feel melancholy today. It’s the second holiday season without you here. And the saying “things have to fall apart to …..whatever whatever something positive” is completely applicable to life as I know it now. Everything has fallen apart. Yes we have been blessed with two babies that would be your absolute pride and joy on this earth right now, but life got otherwise, ugly this year. Uglier than the pain of watching you leave. There have been the lowest lows, and I can really only count very few highs inside this last year. So mom, my Christmas letter to you in heaven on year number two is still a sad one. My heart hurts every day, and now it hurts more than usual. As I’m realizing I’ve become the matriarch of this family at an age I didn’t think I’d ever have to be so …much. Essentially I’m filling some very big shoes with half of the experiences. Because, I was still learning from you. I had just begun to learn so much about being a mom from the best. The very articulate mastering of all the different kinds of love you gave. The wisdom you had coming out of every part of your beautiful mind. The power you possessed and the vulnerability you weren’t afraid to show. The way you made me believe in Magic. I am not a quarter of the woman you were when you left this earth. I am not a quarter of the woman you were at age 33. I will never be exactly you because God truly broke the mold when He sent you down. Mommy, I miss you. I miss the big outrageous way you loved me. I miss the way your voice sounds. I miss the way you would reassure me. The shock is gone. I’m not entirely sure I believe and accept that you’re really gone so I still hold onto some little shred of light that some way you could walk through my door today. Tomorrow. Or even better, on Christmas morning. I guess I thought the hardest part would have been watching you suffer. Watching you take your last breath. Going back to real life without my every day dose of you. That was all hard. But the cloak of sadness has come and gone and when it comes it’s usually just as heavy as it was on the 24th of June 2016. I have so much sadness held inside my bones, inside my brain, inside my heart tissue. And when these days that used to be filled with so much love coming at me from you, everything stops and it just hurts. My wish is to find some peace. Acceptance. I’m ready for the good times. I want to worry less and fill up with more love. I want to live and love more like you did. Fearless, out loud, big ass love. I want to feel as good as you used to make everything feel. Safe. Light. Happy. I miss you every second of every day and sometimes still get confused when I get the urge to call you. I know you’re proud of us kids. I know you long for the day you see us again. I know you are at peace. I just wish I could steal you back for a second. Oh what I’d do for you. I’d give it all just to spoil you at Christmas.To feel your hair in my hands. To sit close to you on the couch. To hear you cackle. To love you in person again. I’ll hold onto my memories, while they’re holding onto me. Merry Christmas my angel. I love you to the moon and whatever’s after that.