I was 18 years and 4 1/2 (ish) months old when my Mom died. I am 36 years and 9 months (ish) old right now. In case you don’t have enough fingers and toes to do the math, that means my mom died half my life ago. Half of my life.

I can’t wrap my brain around that. It’s been way more than 18 years since I’ve hugged her or told her about my day or heard her tell me she loved me. It’s been a hundred years at least. It feels closer to a thousand years…

On the flip side, she’s here with me constantly. Not just in photos around my apartment or genetics, but in who I am, the things I think or do or say. (Who remembers my mother after a delicious meal sitting back from the table and exclaiming “my seatbelt is too tight!” That’s something I do too.) So much of who I am is from my mother that it’s never felt like she was gone, maybe just away for a long while. Every time I eat at The Bear Pit, Mom is with me. Whenever I go to the cemetery and leave jelly beans instead of rocks, Mom is with me. (There’s no deep philosophical meaning to jelly beans in regards to death, don’t look for one. Once when I was a kid we couldn’t find any stones or rocks to put on the headstones we were visiting, but in a flash of brilliance Mom remembered we had jelly beans in the car so we used those instead. We laughed so hard we cried!)

I guess there’s no real point to this post except to acknowledge the passing of time. It’s been half my life, but she’s here in me every day.

Thanks Mom.