Dear Mom

  Ten years. A lot can change in that time period. Ten years ago, I was thirteen, eagerly anticipating my fourteenth birthday and our plans to see a movie and eat perogies at Swiss Chalet. I had just gone through my second phase with my Barbie dolls and watching Sailor Moon, in what now seems like a sad attempt to avoid entering my adolescence and trying to hold on to my youth with both hands. My summer plans consisted of babysitting Miki, going to some of Dad and Ran's ball games, and going out with you for "our" anniversary (since Dad always seemed to have a tournament that weekend). I didn't have a cell phone, nor did I particularly want one. Internet was still dial up, and that didn't bother me in the slightest. And we couldn't wait for the season premier of Friends in the fall to see who the father of Rachel's baby was.
  Ten years. My summer still consists of baseball games. I can't live without my cell phone. The only time I get to hear the sweet nostalgic sounds of dial up is when I watch You've Got Mail. While Rachel had Ross's baby, our favourite show has ended and can only be seen in re-runs. And I am acknowledging a new anniversary... one that reminds me that you aren't here to go out for perogies or make fun of Dad with me.
   I'm twenty-three now... but in so many ways I still feel like that thirteen year old girl. Scared and confused; trying to figure out who I am, but still desperately wanting to hold on to the past. I wish I could say that I can look back on these past ten years, years spent without you, and tell you that I have no regrets. But looking back I see that those years weren't spent to their fullest potential. To my fullest potential. I survived. It seemed the only thing that I could do. I made it through school, through moves, through Dad's bad choices. I made it through all of that, sometimes in a numb, hazy state, and somehow I made it through without you.
  I'm not seeing our time together through rose colored glasses. We didn't get along all the time. We fought, something you apparently talked to Grandma about. She told me that we fought like you used to fight with her, and that you wondered if maybe it wasn't because we were too much alike, like you and she were too much alike. I pray that she's right, because you both embody everything I've ever wanted to be. Strong, loyal, full of faith and hope and love. Your sense of humor was weird and wonderful and smart. I don't know if you felt like you lived an amazing life, or if you felt unimportant being just a factory worker and a mom... But you lived fully in that life, and did your best to shine Jesus through your eyes every day. And to me, that makes you the most impressive person I've ever met; someone to respect, admire, emulate.
  So I survived those last ten years. But I didn't live in them. For that I am sorry. My promise to you, and to God is to not make that mistake again. I'm going to live and love more deliberately, with more focus on the people I have been blessed with in my life. I want to keep in touch with people! I want games night back! And movie nights spent falling asleep on the couch with the TV still on! I want to think about what I say, and actually apologize when I don't. I want to bless people the way you have always blessed me. I want to go after my dreams and not be so scared of them. I want to be the person that I want to be; the kind of person that you would be proud of; the kind of person God made me to be.
  That doesn't mean that I'll stop missing you. That, it seems, is a pain, a void that time can not completely heal or fill. I will still think of you at every wedding I ever go to, realizing that if I'm so blessed to have one of my own that you won't be there. You will still be on my mind when I open our Bible, drive past Springford ball diamonds, long for your hand to hold like in our shared naps after church. Because, to quote E.E. Cummings, "Here is the deepest secret no one knows. Here is the root of the root... and the bud of the bud... and the sky of the sky of a tree called life... which grows higher than the soul can hope, or mind can hide. It is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart. I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart."
  So, Sara, my amazing mother, I am sorry that we didn't get to be as close of friends as I would have liked, and I am sorry that I have acted like part of me died the day you did... the best part of me. And even though I still feel that way, I know that you would want me to live life, for you and because of you, and because that's why our Jesus came and died and saved. That we may have life and have it to the fullest. You helped teach me that. I made it through the last ten years. I want to make the next ten count. And the ten after that. Until we are together again.
<3 Kayla
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7o5bAxtPM