August 1984

Mommy,

I love you.
Can I pick one of your roses to take to my teacher?
Mrs. Alexander thinks they look pretty on her desk.
Robby's in my class this year.  Today we got to work in groups.  I sat beside him and
at lunch Matt made fun of me for calling Scott, bubby.  From now on I'm going to call him Scott.
I don't think he'll care.  You know that ruffled shirt?  Carla has one just like it.  If it's okay we're both going to wear them tomorrow.  We like to match.  We might work in groups again.  I hope Robby's in mine.

Me.



~



August 1985

Mommy,

Are we going to paint pumpkins again this year?
I told Mrs. Vanderpool about the ones we painted last year.  I think I want a clown face on mine this time.  Will you help me paint it?  I'll try to take care of Scott on the bus.  But Shane's been picking on him and Scott doesn't even know karate. 

I love Mrs. Vanderpool.  I think she likes me.  She says your roses are pretty and pink.  Can I take her one tomorrow?  Will you wrap the stem in a wet paper towel like you did last week?
I love you.

Me.



~



August 1986

Dear Mommy,

I've never seen Dad cry.  But this morning when we woke up, ( I guess you know we spent the night at Dottie's.) Dad was bawling.  I didn't  really understand.  But when he told me, when I figured out what he was trying to tell us, I understood.  We spent the day in bed, crying.  Scott laid on one side of Dad.  I cuddled up to the other side.  They both cried more than I did.  It's not that I don't love you, but it doesn't seem real yet.  I'm pretty sure that when we go home you'll be there.  I hope so anyway.  I don't think I can paint our pumpkins by myself.  I need your help.

I love you,

Me.



~



October 1986

Dear Mommy,

You weren't there when we came home.  Robby, Matt, Carla, Kevin and Heather sent me flowers.  I put them on that big shelf in the corner of the living room but I think I'm going to put them away.  Yesterday, I cried at school.  I didn't mean to, didn't want to.  But Amanda asked me what happened.  And I didn't know what to tell her.  Something about stuff pumped up from your belly into your lungs.  I don't have it figured out just yet.  I told her you'd been sleeping for awhile.  Dad called it a coma.

I'm a little sad that we didn't buy any pumpkins this year.  But Scott, Scott wakes up screaming at night and says he sees you standing at the foot of the bed.  Dad sits up with him then sends us to school in the mornings.  So I can do without a painted pumpkin until I learn to paint them myself.  Dad seems really sad.  All the people who offered to help with us, left.  Aunt Rhea moved to Oklahoma, took Shane and Chantry with her.  I don't think Dad is doing very well.  He lost his job and he misses you.  Scott misses you.  I miss you.  Last week, when we cut wood, I know you left the door open.  Dad didn't believe me.   He said he locked the door.  He didn't believe it was standing open until he got in the truck and defrosted the windows. I know you opened it.  I know you wanted to be with us.  We closed it and then tried to make it stand open again, like it was.  But that door kept falling shut.  It never did stand open without being propped.  I felt you crawl into the truck.  I scooted over to make room for you. 

I've been trying to cook, but I really don't know how.  Dad's been trying to cook but he doesn't really know how to either.  Last week Dad made a cake that filled up the whole oven but when he opened the door it fell.  Today,  Dad and Scott had to eat chocolate cake with rice in it.  It wasn't very good.  But I wanted to make tapioca pudding.  And I thought that tapioca pudding might have rice in it.  It doesn't.  So I turned it into a chocolate cake.  Scott said it would have been pretty good if he didn't have to spit out the rice.  (It didn't cook.)  I made blue mashed potatoes the other day too.  They looked disgusting but they tasted okay. 

Dad's been pruning your roses.  They're still pretty.  But I don't take them to my teachers anymore.  Sometimes I pick them and bring them inside.  But they don't cheer up our house much.  It's different.  So different.  Scott sleeps in the bed with dad and I make a bed out of comforters and sleep at their feet.  I don't want to sleep in my room, by myself.

Christmas will be sad this year.  I know it.

Love,

Me.



~



October 31, 2001



Dear Mom,


    I stopped writing, I know.  I took one letter to your grave when I was sixteen.  But I think someone opened it up, read it and took it.  I went back to find it, to bury it next to you, but it wasn't there.  I don't visit you much.  Jim rents Grandpa's house and the people living there, plopped a trailer in the road to the grave yard.  You would have been proud of me the last time I went there.  I parked in the middle of their yard and just walked back like I owned the place.  Yes, I have your temper...or should I say your will.  I know you're not there though. Not in a grave.  Not underground  I've called out to you in my head more times than I can count.  I've needed you in so many ways.  In every way.  But I've learned that there are pieces of you in every part of me.  At work I help my girls paint pumpkins every fall.  Christmas time-we paint snow scenes on every window--just like you painted our mirrors at home.  Every season, you are remembered when they ask me how I learned to paint.  I think you'd be proud of that.  How my life has somehow been centered around helping people.  I remember how you always took people into our house when they didn't have a place to stay.  I think some of that is embedded in me.  I don't know how you'd feel about how I turned out.  I don't think I'm quite what you had expected.  But I'm trying to learn, to grow, to expand, to be a woman that you would have been proud to call your daughter.  When you left, so much of me went with you.  And everything I've learned so far, I've had to go in search of.  But I still feel you, placing loving people around me like a barrier.  So many times...people have gone to bat for me.  I know that is not a coincidence.  I know you're guiding them....placing them....just as you propped that door open, letting us know that you were not entirely gone. 
    I hear old people whisper that I look just like you.  I get a kick, most times, as being recognized as a walking phantom.  Somewhere along the line, I decided that I would become all that you were never able to be.  I decided that I would live and learn and grow for you.  So that people will know how you would have been if you'd lived to be an old lady.  We will be wise old women on the hill, you and I.  Days and nights spent feeling, just feeling.  You will live through my eyes and in my stories and in my hands.  I'm keeping them wide open so you don't miss a moment.  We still love you.  We still miss you.  We still remember the small things.  And I don't really know if every bit of our spirits left that bed.  I think sometimes, our insides still bawl.  But Dad, he's okay.  He laid the gun down.  We still have him.  And Scott, he's still learning.  And I am trying hard to merge little girl, old lady, awkward woman, into 23 year old soul.  It's hard but I have so much under my skin.

I just want to make you proud.

I've loved you.

Me.