What Sarah Said

Christmas lights, snow falling under a street light at night, the sharp smell of winter, and a Kanye West album have all gotten twisted together in the deep neural pathways of my mind that lead straight to you. I cant think of any of these things independently of the others any more. They have become this whirlwind of sounds and feelings and colors with you sitting calmly at the center. Some of these make sense--you loved the holidays and always practically killed yourself to make sure everything was perfect even though you thought it never was no matter how many times you rearranged the tree. The one night in my adolescence when for the hell of it we decided to go walking around in the dead of winter because we both couldn't bear to sit inside watching the way the snow glimmered in the street lights without becoming a part of it. That was your idea and it made me so happy. Ive tried hard to figure out how an entire hip hop album got thrown into the mix as well. It wasn't even released until 2 years after your death, but somehow its there. Whatever emotions it stirs in me fit in with the themes of cold, darkness, colorful lights, glinting snow, a safe place to return to, that I now associate directly with who you were to me.

The morning you died, the nurse called to tell me to get down there as she thought it might be today. Looking back on it, I have no idea how she knew considering you were your normal lively self. Maybe your vitals were forecasting doom and gloom and she being a student of the secret language of the body could see things I couldn't see. Because you were still you. You weren't sitting feebly in bed with your eyes closed. You were talking, gesturing, joking, bitching about the hospital food. You were never someone I didn't recognize. I am grateful for that in a way. That your spark didn't go out until it was absolutely forced to.

When I close my own eyes and picture that day, I see the bright yellow leaves on a rain soaked street outside your hospital room. The grey clouds that covered everything. There was no sunshine. The wind was blowing and hinting at the coldness and darkness soon to come. And it fit. It fit because it was real and because the emptiness outside reflected the emptiness inside myself.

I will never regret being with you as you died. Watching someone die is the most beautiful and horrible thing. There is a sacredness to it. All I wanted, all I really truly wanted was to make sure you weren't afraid. I didn't want you to be scared to let go. So I spoke softly into your ear all the things I thought would help you be brave. I wonder over and over if you could still hear me at that point. I hope you could.

People tell me you are still around me. That you are in heaven smiling down. That you are Jacks guardian angel. That you went to a better place. I want to believe some of those things. I want to believe that the little things I see as signs that some part of you is still conscious that I am your daughter and that I miss you are actually you trying to reach out to me. But if I'm completely honest, all I can say is I don't know. I don't know if you are really there. Or if whatever is left of your spirit even remembers who I am. Its one of those things that I speak into the wind and have come to accept in the not knowing. For whatever reason, we aren't meant to know all the answers. Maybe we never will. What I do know is this: you taught me how to love. The love I show my children is like a whisper from a time when you were still here. Every kiss, every hug, every spoken Its going to be OK is as if you were still standing behind me. I see you in your grandson's smile. In his feistyness. In his unwillingness to back down. And amidst the frustration I laugh thinking of how much you'd love this kid.

So I will go to the place we laid you to rest. And I will sit on the grass and clean the stone and make sure I bring some really colorful fall arrangement that you wouldn't think was tacky. And I will honor the time we had together and the fact that you were my mother. And I will understand what that actually means for the first time as I think about how I feel about my own children. And I will say thank you. Thank you for being my mother. For giving me life. For loving me unconditionally. For being smart and funny and sarcastic and creative. Thank you for being who you were to me.