Dear Mom-Mom

Dear Mom-Mom,

I passed a funeral procession on the highway today and immediately began crying. Sobbing. Not quite like the day of your funeral, when I couldn't even walk unassisted, but not a sweet, nostalgic tear either. My two boys you've never met were asleep in the backseat, Sister Act the musical was rocking in the speakers, and I just broke down.

I miss you.

I miss playing cards with you for hours at your kitchen table.  I miss that small fan that sat on your counter - no match for the freezing central air at my house - and your perfectly stocked snack drawer. I miss Boggle and perms and even the plastic runway that kept your dining room carpet clean.  I miss your stories and your smile and your sense of fashion and swinging on your front porch watching lightning bugs.  I miss it all. Every detail.

I tell J-Man about you.  Soon I'll be able to tell PDG and MDG all about you too.  I mention you when we drive by your house, though with what those new tenants have done there, it's hard to see it as your house anymore.  It looks like an episode of Hoarders. It kind of hurts my heart.

I recently just posted a vacation photo to facebook received the sweetest note from your old neighbor. She misses you too. How could we not?

It probably doesn't help my emotional state that it's almost exactly eight years to the day since you passed. Every year around now I mark another year since starting to fall in love with my J-Man and since saying good-bye to you. Talk about a bittersweet season.

It probably doesn't help either that I'm scheduled to teach about eternal families on Sunday.  When I think of my forever family, you're obviously a part of it. I like to think that you're waiting for me up/out there. Hopefully proud of who I'm becoming. Excited to share countless more years with me, and my siblings, and our children.

With all this in my mind, how could I not break down at the sight of 10+ cars, lights flashing, following the hearse of someone they hold dear en route to his or her final resting place?

I try not to spend too much time dwelling on the past, but now and again I can't help but remember twenty-two years' worth of memories living a mile down the road from you. So when I cry like today, it's not all sadness. It's happiness to have something to be sad about. It's love. It's hope. It's gratitude. But yes, it's also missing one of the most amazing women I've ever met.