I shouldn’t be here.

Not here, exactly, as in, sitting at my kitchen table, early on a Sunday morning, typing away on my Mac.  But here.  This place in my head.  I had it all planned out, you see, and it didn’t look like this at all.  Funny how that happens, isn’t it?

You see, my mother passed away in February of this past year.  I am now a motherless daughter.  And that is not where I should be.

On many levels, I know I have no right to complain.  I am one of the lucky ones.  I had, for the most part, a wonderful childhood.  As I got older, my relationship with my mother evolved into one of those where I actually considered her one of my best friends.  I called her every day, and she was the one who could talk me through any insanity I could throw at her.  She was my creative collaborator and editor and often, I was hers.  She had this practical wisdom that allowed her to see right through things that to me looked like impossible dilemmas.  We traveled together, a little, and were planning to do more.  I had small kids and she had a demanding job as a professor at a university, but kids grow up and jobs end and we were waiting for the day when we would have the freedom to do more trips together; we loved to do the same things, so it was going to be absolutely perfect!  She was set to retire in January of 2015, and then she finally did it.  She retired in 2015 with 30 years as a teacher in the Texas school systems, starting in the classroom, moving to being a principal, and then culminating with her teaching at the university level after she got her PhD.

She was a pretty amazing lady, as perhaps you can see.

And then, one month after she retired, on her 64th birthday, she found out that she had breast cancer.  Less than two years later, she was gone.  Two awful, tortured, “treatment” filled years later.

And nothing’s been the same since.