Meant To Be

Today, Mom, you would have turned 79. I had always imagined celebrating your 95th birthday with you just like you did with your own mother.

But it wasn’t meant to be…

The last birthday we shared together was the two of us spending five hours in the urgent care because you were dying of lymphoma. Only nobody knew.

Because it wasn’t meant to be…

I watched, helplessly, as you grew sicker and sicker, and I pleaded with the doctors to figure out what was wrong with you.

Only it wasn’t meant to be…

Four months of suffering; twenty-one days in the hospital; twelve different doctors; three hours on morphine – and then you were gone. I cursed and screamed and cried, and asked God why you couldn’t stay.

He said it wasn’t meant to be…

I’ve spent the last 3 years and 26 days without you, and I expected that at some point I would stop needing you or that it would get easier not having you around. But it hasn’t.

It wasn’t meant to be…

Because if I stopped needing you, or if it got easier without, then that might mean that I’ve moved on without you, and I don’t want that to happen…

Even if it was meant to be.

I love you, Mom. Happy Heavenly Birthday!

5/7/1936 – 6/2/2011