Two Years of Missing You

Every day you’ve been gone, I’ve felt a little closer to God.

Many might be appalled at that notion. Yet somehow, for me, your passing has been a bit of comfort, truth, and faith lately.

I don’t think of you every day - but I think of you often. I believe that I think of you often because you’ve still chosen to be present in my life from the other side.

It’s no secret we had our difficulties while you were flesh and blood. A bible thumper who didn’t understand the context of God’s word. A believer who hadn’t been to church much in 30 years. A faithful pawn in the political games of the nastiest, most corrupt and powerful entities known to the 21st century. All of which I might have looked past, had you not been insistent on indoctrinating me into a cult which used Christianity as its scapegoat. Wagged your finger at me when I said I couldn’t believe. Shunned me for upholding my values, even though you were one of the women who taught me to forge myself in the flames, to fight in order to go my own way.

I feel closer to you now because I know that all of that fear disguised as hatred, that plagued and crippled you, is gone. Vanished. Like it simply isn’t real, and it never was. All I see in death is you.

I don’t see the racism, the fear, the vitriol. I only feel the essence of you, the one that would radiate out in those rare occasions that you were still and quiet and present. The mornings before dawn in the dark on the screened in patio before big breakfast, where you’d have a cuppa and ask me how I slept. Where we didn’t have to sit in the wake of our own quarreling conditioning. A place to lay our loud faults down for a while so that the deepest essence of our loving selves could rise and expand with the morning sun.

I love you more and more deeply each day as you further teach me about compassion, gratitude, and time. I regret spending so much time away sometimes the last ten years of your life. I wish my kids would’ve really known you; been able to remember you. You were always so much fun for kids.

Today I hear you, clearly as ever, “Hello Sunshine! How’s my baby?” I loved so much that you truly treated me like the light of your life. You loved to listen to what I was up too. If we were talking, I was the only person in the room. You always lived for the gossip, but you balanced that with the importance of presence, listening to my woes and validating my feelings. I was your pride and joy. It’s both strange and satisfying to know I still am. Hearing your voice deep in my heart now after two years away saying, “I love you, my baby.”

Sugarcoating life doesn’t work. People are complex. To pretend you were something you weren’t as a human does a disservice to your memory. I want to share all the parts of you. But, the deep knowing I get from you now from the beyond, how I feel when I hear you around is something whole - like the you that was here was only a sliver, and now I can finally see the all of you. In all of your beauty, your glory, your freedom, your light.

Regardless, I’ve loved you all my life, and I will continue to love you til we reunite. I miss you frequently, and I talk to you often. Even now I’m muttering to the sky as I write, to you. A letter to heaven. I love you, Mammaw. I’m so glad you’re still here, in my soul, with me.