"Fear is the heart of love"

I thought I knew fear and grief, but I didn’t. Not until you passed away, Mom. That day, I rushed out of the hotel and to your hospital bed. I just wanted a few last hours with my mommy. I thought that somehow, you’d miraculously come back from it, but I watched you slip over to the other side. I’m just glad you waited for me to get there before you went.

I watched the color drain out of the room that day. It was a little darker in my world and I can’t say that it’s lightened up very much since you passed away. If Marie and Uncle Darrell didn’t walk me out of the room you were in, I might have died there, too.

When you first passed away, I kept telling myself that we were fighting and I was being too stubborn to admit that I was wrong about something, and you were just mad at me. After a day, it stopped working since we never went more than a day without talking. In my entire life, you and I have maybe been out of contact for twelve hours, and this is the longest that I haven’t spoken to you, the longest I haven’t made a sarcastic comment about something just so you’d laugh. This is the longest I’ve gone without hearing your laugh.

Every single day that I wake up I feel like a part of me is missing. I didn’t think that that grief was possible to carry. It spills over into every part of my day, this enormous burden. I thought I knew that kind of pain when Brittany overdosed and we lost her, but losing a best friend is nothing like losing a part of yourself that’s been there since birth. Losing a best friend is nothing like losing your favorite person.

And I hope that in four months, that I’m ready to have a child of my own. It’s crazy to think that he’s due just days before you passed away. I know somehow, it’s the universe or whatever is out there telling me that you’re still pulling strings to make me feel okay. Some might say that you’re coming back. I know it’s like some cosmic trade to keep me persevering, but it doesn’t take away the fact that I’m a scared kid that just wants their mommy.

My whole pregnancy so far, I’ve just craved you. I just want your advice. Your comfort. You. I’ve wanted you to make fun of me. I want you to hover like you always did. I want you to tell me what’s normal and what I need to do so my kid is healthy. This is when I really need you, and no matter how well-meaning everyone else is, their advice will never come close to yours. Nothing comes close to the level of comfort you were able to provide me in your life and our time together.

I am really hoping that all the things that you and I did together transfer over since I’m having a little boy. I know I wasn’t all that girly, I just really liked dresses. I hope that it’s easy to raise a son and that he clings to me like I did to you. I’m honestly terrified. Not the giving birth part. Not of the existential world I’m bringing my child into. Rather the parenting part. I had the best mother in the world. I’ve said it before, but whatever higher being was out there tailor-made you to be my perfect parent. I probably needed it, considering how traumatic my life ended up being. You balanced the scales for me.

I wish you were here, and I wish that you were going to be there with me in the delivery room in four months. I wish it was you and me and that you’d teach me how to mold myself to be whatever my son needs. I guess what I’m most scared of is not holding a candle to the kind of parent you were for me for my child.

In retrospect, I don’t know how you always knew the exact right thing to say or to teach me. You taught me to trust my gut, even if those words never came out of my mouth. You taught me to be responsible and to make sure that I never caused any chaos, despite me never learning how to be meek. I know you loved how outspoken I was when I was passionate about something, and I hope that I can hold my tongue when it comes to my own child. I’m sure that he’ll take after me and be opinionated about everything, so my work will be cut out for me.

The therapists were right though. We were always enmeshed; we never knew where one ended and the other began. But I guess that this is my beginning, Mom. As terrifying as it is and as it will be, I’m going to have a child of my own in four months. In just four months, I’ll be in the hospital holding my baby and I’ll sing to him the same song I sang to you when you passed away. I hope by then I can sing it without crying.

But I was so lucky to be your child, Mom. You loved me exactly how I needed to be loved. I hope I can be like that for my child of my own. I hope I make you proud.

“When there’s no one beside you when your soul embarks, I will follow you into the dark.”