It was a little after midnight when I woke up to this low alert sound…. bliiing bliiing…. I got out of bed to see where the noise was coming from. I stood at the top of the stairs when I realized I didn’t hear it anymore. And then, bliiing bliiing. I followed the noise into the office where I realized it was Dan’s printer telling me I had to restart it but not to touch it with a pen. Ok? So instead of unplugging it, the alert was low and ignorable enough that I closed the door tight and returned back into Mav’s bed to sleep.(😂 cosleepers unite)

Ok so I fell back asleep and again was woken up, this time nothing prompted it, but I looked into where the door to the office is adjacent to the hallway and saw this orangey, blushy, golden glow. (I remember thinking in my head “I’ll explain this as rose gold in the morning”)The light had a stillness to it, but also looked like the sun was shining in through a pink linen scarf or something similar to that. It wasn’t pulsing or fleeting it was just completely there and moving but not moving at all. In that moment I felt panic; is it a fire? Did I leave a candle on? Is it morning? I looked out Maverick’s window into the backyard and it was dead dark outside. In that moment I instantly remembered ‘but I closed the office door, nothing could be shining out of it?’ And in that same exact thought I realized it was my mother. I had gone from panic to fright to complete peace and warmth inside and I said “hi mommy” and instantly fell asleep.

It was exactly how you would imagine seeing someone whose passed. It was as if she was right there and I was scared and nervous but automatically when I realized it was her, I was overwhelmed with happiness and instantly felt safe from the other feelings I just worked through, in the middle of a very special night.

So of course, as you would expect I woke up and it was all I could talk about. I told Dan and Mav, my brother and my sister and it was just awesome as it was the day before March 1st. So now get this. I’m in the kitchen and I have a serious superstition about changing the calendar over before the day is through. I also don’t cross my days out on the calendar spaces because that too bothers me. So I walk over to the pantry and notice a new dog in a new yoga pose on the calendar and realize it’s switched to March 1st 2018 instead of February 28th. I of course panic and ask everyone if they changed it. It was flipped up, pinned into the hole, and the marker was hooked on the top of the pages that had been flipped. Everyone denied their premature flipping of the calendar including my son, so I believe in my heart some way some how, mama Rita came and let it be known that if I had any doubt she paid me a visit, there was literally now writing on the wall to support my belief that it was her. I again said hi to her and laughed a little because I almost don’t believe it myself. But this woman, this mother of mine, this magical angel is proving to be just as powerful in beyond as she was here on earth.

It’s March. Rita’s birthday month. Mine. And now it’s my son’s birthday month. Maverick was far and wide her most prized possession in life. Even if he came in March 2014 and she only got to love him for 2 years and 3 months, it was enough love for him to still ask about her every day. Ask me what her phone number is. Sometimes after we read books, we remember together what her face looked like. He asks me why she doesn’t come visit. He talks about her to his cousins, and his cousins now say Gaga every time they find an angel feather (fun fact: an angel feather is any feather Mav finds. Whether it’s from a pillow, a down comforter or a duck itself, they are feathers from Gaga in heaven and he finds one almost every day 💛). He made her a glamma, a Gaga and a Grammie and she lived for him in her last years here on earth. Sometimes life is so unfair. I still have a hard time grasping the fact that my mother, the one whose presence filled up an entire building when she walked in, the woman who was larger than life, in your face, unfiltered and somehow fit her ocean sized heart inside her chest, is gone. She’s missing from us. She’s missing from the new memories we are making. She’s missing from her own birthday month, her favorite season to shop, from Easter planning, Easter basket making, and she is missing from three undoubtedly still very cherished grandchildren’s lives. They will always know about her, because she is certainly always knowing about them while watching from above; and who are we to take that big humongous love away from them?

Mama. This year you would have been 59. Fifty nine years YOUNG. Because that’s always how you acted, young, bold, fun. Wise. Big and strong like a mountain. Rooted like an ancient oak tree, and the size of the love you carried inside you truly was pure, innocent and immeasurable. I miss the way you loved me and how it made me feel. I miss you loving me every. damn. day. and still can’t seem to understand why you were taken from us. Know this, celebrate you we do. We always will. We’ll love you for the rest of our days and whatever’s after that. But missing you. Missing you is the hardest part. Missing you is what we do in between the seconds where we speak your name out loud. Love you love you love you. And happy birthday month to you 👑🎂💪🏽🎀