Picturing it and then lettin' it go.

Dear Mama,
I find myself trying to picture the tiniest little details... like the way that the insides of the closets looked. Or the minutia of your backyard. I wish I knew the names of all of the plants. I wish I'd taken the time to learn everything about you. Yesterday Hunter and I went to the greenhouse at Old Time Pottery and picked out herbs. He asked me the names of all of the plants. He really liked the red geraniums. If not for you, I'd imagine that the word geranium would mean very little to me. But I believe you always got geraniums for the flower beds. After these moments, the ones that send me into a tailspin, grasping at all memories, I always feel the need to connect with people who know you. I have an overwhelming desire to call all of them. So I did. Well, I at least called several of them. Jeff told me that he sat outside on the porch and looked at your tulips yesterday. Only I guess they aren't your tulips anymore. They are someone else's. Because I was told that he sold the house. He sold the house that I grew up in and didn't bother to tell me. He sold the only place that I ever lived until I went away to college and didn't offer to let me come and look inside just one more time. He sold the house that you lived in for over 3o years and didn't call me up and say, "Hey, thought you might like to come and take photos of your children in the same backyard where you used to play when you were their age." He sold the house. And didn't really seem to care how it might affect me. I didn't expect him to keep it. After all, he lives somewhere else and leads the life of someone else now. But common courtesy would require one to at least acknowledge the connection that their child might have to the past. I cannot even imagine treating my own children the same way. These situations, these new found bits of information, always make me cling desperately to people who connect me the most to my past. And so I had a dream last night. And I heard conversations in my head... ones that we used to have about certain people from my past. A certain person who is not a part of my past any more than he is a part of my present. But I've been slapped in the face with the cold hard facts that he is not my future. I'm not even sure what I mean by all of this but I'm swirling around inside of a great storm of loneliness right now. I miss you and I miss having anyone in my life who actually knows me. And while I know that there are certain individuals who will always love me from afar, it's a terrible dead end road I must face to realize that it truly didn't turn out the way that I always figured it would.

My yard is filled with red birds. And I've been reading some really good books lately. Ones that you would have liked. Ones to which you would have related.

Oh and I miss you like crazy, miss you like crazy.
Ever since you went away. Every hour of every day.

-Punkin