Hey Mom.

So, here we are, another Sept 27, as beautiful and breezy as the one when we lost you, seven years ago.

I was just telling someone the other day about how significant things seem to happen to me in sevens: I started smoking at 14, quit (and also met the kid’s dad) at 21, got married at 28, divorced at 42. I suppose a lot happened last year at 49 too. It’s striking me now as I write this that these aren’t things that just passively happened to me though – they were conscious decisions I made, for good or bad. Except of course I wouldn’t have ever chosen your death.

Scientists also say that cells in the human body largely renew themselves every seven years. Here’s where my poet brain wants to make some kind of metaphor about your cancer cells, but I’m frustrated by my lack of understanding about it – still, even now. My body may be a whole new person now, but on certain levels my mind still refuses to comprehend what happened to yours. I suppose that’s a choice too.

Last night the kid had a fever – hopefully just a flu, not Covid – and wanted to curl up next to me to sleep just like when she was little. As we both drifted off, I stroked her warm head, imagining I could lift the fever away from her with my hand – as I’m sure you and generations of mothers have done since the beginning of time. The magic of ibuprofen, liquids, and rest played a part here too of course, and she’s feeling better today and now working on re-applying to college, asking me all kinds of date-related questions for their forms. She’s resilient, passionate, ambitious, and snarky as always, and every day I wish you were here to continue watching her become this amazing person you always knew she’d be.

Again, I want to connect these things. How we measure time – the sevens, the decisions. Life before your cancer, your death, the pandemic, and life after. How we keep renewing ourselves, healing, growing, trying to connect the dots of our individual experiences to the infinite stretches of millenia – the tiny cells in our bodies, the cold, dying stars in the sky. And again I’m frustrated, trying to squeeze my words into the right shapes, make it all make sense.

Meanwhile the breeze picks up and tosses the leaves around, like dance partners in the glittering sun. We just keep moving – that’s all I guess. And I still miss you.

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