I live now in the world without a mother on Earth. In many ways it seems the ground has fallen out beneath me. It's nearly impossible to get my head around, and my heart needs much much more time to comprehend. Even when I picture her now I can't decide which picture to hold in my mind - the many of the last six months when so much of her so little resembled the mother I knew, or the one from the 36 years before that had so much presence in her eyes alone. I don't know what to hold onto yet, but without the chance to have her walk through my door again and give me the fullness of her face, I grasp for an image of comfort.

Her words come easily to me, decades of them - her words were lioness in their fierce conviction but as comforting as the softest bunny in the land. And if ever they were delivered without enough thought, she'd come back to them, and find out how they landed to me. My filter in the last 10 years was something like, "Oh mom, mom, mom, don't worry, oh, that's genius, oh mom, oh good point, oh mom, can't we just sit here and not think, oh mom, thank you." That probably makes no sense but my point is, i got so used to the ways she would hear and respond that I began to not hear as well her words and let care just be discarded because it was something mom always said and oh of course mom thinks that, and then I'd be at home lying in bed before sleep and a part of her words would come back and I'd ponder the wisdom and sift through the overworry and usually land with some compassionate seeing words to reckon with for myself. I wish I had not discounted any of them now, i wish I had listened more closely now. And of course, i wish I had asked more now.

I found myself oddly without too many words in our last weeks together. It was a constant internal wrestling match of how to sound optimistic and okay when really I often wanted to beg her to keep fighting and be the miracle case. I confess, unlike dad, who was tireless in his hope, I gave up quickly that we would get that miracle. I was so confused to even be the child who was spending as much of my days as I could to be with her - because I was so very bad at dealing with medical stuff and discomfort and the disorienting life of tumor progression.

One day after a conversation with a friend with whom i relayed my defeat at the end of most days as I left my parent's condo and felt fairly helpless and mostly uncomfortable, and she mentioned the word privilege. And that word bounced in my head all night and I woke up and knew that was it - this indeed was an unmatchable privilege to have the chance to be beside you as often as I could in these days. To witness the loss and changes and process of dying for the person in the world who has done the most for me, who has been the most significant influence of my life - to be able to be by your side as messy and imperfect as it was - was indeed one of the most sacred privileges of my life. For that I am grateful. For now, navigating life on Earth motherless, well it feels awful. The gap is too wide. I miss you.