I am willing away the pain today and it is not working. I am thinking of you flying in next week and wondering if this is the last time you will fly out here. I see you waving to me from the pick up area with the suitcases and bags I can also picture so well as they have traveled a million miles it seems. you and dad are such travelers.

Hannah spent most of the night tonight with her head on my shoulder and it triggered me. your shoulder has been a mountain of comfort all my life. all the times I leaned in, you never moved away, you always leaned in too. you allowed me to rest there and made it known to me i was wanted anytime, but you also always made space for my feisty independent spirit.

I cannot move into a season to comprehend lasts. I don't want any of them to begin. It isn't like any of us ever really know but the space in between hope and forecast springs me into this season I do not want to approach. i want no lasts with you. my favorite way you signed off in our letters is FOREVER, mom and my body is begging, let it be forever, please God.

I find myself not calling you at times i would, almost like I am protecting myself ahead of time for all the times I may not be able to - well of course, screw that, i should call you 5 times a day now. To have more memories of your voice and to remind myself of all the things you would say to me. I called you for a soup recipe the other day because I was dying to talk about something inconsequential, i miss that.

I am bracing. I am beyond excited to have you come next week, and also I am bracing. I am telling myself not to photograph every single moment. i am telling myself I will pick you up from the airport again someday. I am telling myself Hannah will have a million more slumber parties with SuSu. That she will have those shoulders to lean into when she is 15 and needs a safe place. and yet I cannot catch my breath.

i miss you tonight. and already, always, for her, for all the things she won't get to hear you say, i miss you.

“Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery. ”
― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter