Ive felt like your mother for the better part of forever.. I also feel like I don't even know you yet I know you so deeply. It's been the biggest mind fuck of my life. You never forget your mother. I remember how bright blue your eyes used to look and you had your hair in the cutest pony tail. You looked like my mom. I saw your spirit then. I don't know even if you were sober in those moments, but some how then it didn't matter. You were alert. You felt present. I wanted to be just like you. So beautiful, confident and outgoing. I, by God's grace, was able to capture those moments and emulate you. I can make friends anywhere. I say hello with deep conviction to anyone I run across. I will strike up a conversation with the waitress or the check out cashier at shoprite for no good reason other than to just be kind. I will go out of my way to make someone feel loved even when I do not feel loved myself. All of those beautiful lessons I've learned from you. They make up the best parts of who I am. They make me able to raise a strong confident daughter. They allow me to be a role model of Grace for her to emulate one day. In that confidence she will find a loving husband, she will work fiercely for the things she wants out of this life, she will learn to see both sides of the coin and relish in the dirty one. The side of life that isn't so kind. The best parts of both of us mom, were created there. There is no joy that has not known sorrow. Completely void of all emotions ironically because we have the ability to feel everything so very deeply. It is almost too much to handle. Thank God for the escape. The quiet I call it. I've met you there often. Some how it all seems so still and numb. Feeling everything so profoundly has been the blessing and the curse of my existence. I can't even watch a sad commercial without tearing up. I can feel such deep empathy even through the television screen. That powerfulness is overwhelming. But my God the Joy. My heart grows ten times the size when I see people in absolute bliss. To be a part of their space. Occupy time in their heart and mind.. What an incredible thing human connection is. To love another person, a friend, a partner... to love their children, their baggage, their bad days. I don't know that everyone gets to experience that, and that's the sadest thought I've ever thought. When you meet people in the pits of their lives. When they're barely hanging on is when they are the most beautiful to me. Their stories sound like music. It resonates with the rhythm of my soul. I was bread from despair, and notice it almost immediately in another. If all the people in the world had that ability no one would ever be lonely. I am but 1 person, with only 2 arms, and the wanting to hold everyone. Thank you mom, for all the good stuff.
