Hey Mom…I need to talk. So, I guess you could say it’s the ides of October, and so much going on I hardly even know where to begin.

God, it’s hard to believe sometimes, but it will be 13 years this year. Thirteen years since that Halloween night you left us. And it astounds me how much has happened since the veil thinned and you past from us.

I’ve moved home three times, which I said I would never do. I’ve been to the big city and back. I’ve escaped to the wilds of Grey by Georgian Bay. I’ve loved, and lost. I’ve made some wrong turns, and some right ones, and some that seemed wrong but in fact were perhaps necessary.

Just like the tea towel in the wind you said I always was.

Life, I’ve learned, will always go on; regardless of how firmly you plant your feet. And death happens, try as we might to “rage against the dying of the light“.

Those of us who must saunter on, well, I suppose we all learn to cope in our own individual ways.

After Grandma died, I saw how losing a Mom, regardless of our age, can nearly destroy us. So I learned from you, I guess, in a round about way.

I learned from you how death can rob the living of happiness, and with sadness how one can be consumed with grief. How that if we are not vigilant, that libation we have chosen for comfort, can become in time merely a blanket for cold sorrow. It’s not fair, but we all know life rarely is, and none of us signed any contracts to the effect that life was supposed to be fair, or that happiness could be plucked from trees like Apples.

So now I DIY that relentless quiet grief, and am learning how to craft my own sense of joy.

It’s not always easy though. This month is now the anniversary of another death for me, and this Saturday marks two years since Tim’s death. I honestly Mom don’t know how I’m feeling. I’m confused, but not as sad as I was. I don’t cry as often as I did. And lots of things are changing. I’m moving on.

Pieces of me still feel that bitter wind of grief, but they are now thankfully rare. Yet my thoughts on it all are no more defined, even with these years between that broken piano bench, and now. From cowering in fear, to holding his dying hand, and still today I don’t know how I’m suppose to feel.

In the end, in these last days of his life 2 years ago, I sat there beside his bed, and wondered where I’d be today. Like a prisoner, maybe, after being captive for so long, there was a whiff of fear inside me. Fear of the unknown, and fear of failure, fear of leaving the lake, and fear of being all alone again.

As I sat there, as I watched him slowly slip away, day after day, I felt as well his jealousy towards my living, when he would not. It was that one thing he could not take from me.

God Mom, I feel like such a schlep even saying that, but he took a lot of things from me he had no right to.

Yet even now, today, I still grieve the loss of him. I still miss him, and regardless of it ALL, I know there will always be a part of me that feels that way.

Well, I have to get ready for work now. Hopefully they give me Saturday off….GOD help me, if they don’t, give me strength. But even better, please give me the day off .

I’ll write more this weekend, lots to say, lots to try to muddle my way through. I really need you right now, and these letters help me more each time.

Love Paula