angela black

Top right

Every morning I sit down and look at the date in the top right of my computer screen. It’s so weird to have an anniversary date for the worst day of my life. That sounds so melodramatic but I don’t know how else to phrase it.

The thing is, I don’t even need to check to know it’s coming. My throat is tight, the tears plop over without much notice and I replay seeing my mom for the last time in my head. I don’t want to… but I do. It is the strangest, most humbling thing I have ever seen. Just the two of us… and her not really there any more. I was already pretty grown up but that whole year changed so much about what I know about life. Yet somehow the same image of my dad from earlier that year doesn’t bother me as much. His was a peaceful end to two years of suffering. It was a reprieve, a relief. My mom’s was sudden and a giant kick in the ass to a woman who had already been handed more than her fair share of harsh blows.

Every time the date rolls around I think, well I’m not going to say anything. I’ve said it all in year’s previous. I am back to my normal strength and no longer feel overwhelmed by grief even though I still shed tears for them quite regularly. I’ve said it all before. But the dates near and I feel so much and writing these words helps clear it from my heart some. They mattered and I miss them and that is how it will always be.