Dear Mama

 Hi Mama

tomorrow will be 5 weeks you've been gone already. I think that is just starting to become "real" to me. It will also be the first birthday that I will have to spend without you. Wow. that's rough. the days are getting harder the longer you are gone. And never in my whole life have I wanted something so much and not be able to do anything about it. You're gone. I can't call you, I can't drive over to pick you up and we can't go shopping and out to lunch anymore, because you are GONE.  Somehow my brain just cannot or refuses to accept this. I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread . But, God has been faithful. Praise the Lord, he has held me up and gotten me this far. Without him, I don't even want to think where I'd be right now.

I walked through your empty apartment yesterday before handing in your keys. I open the door and your smell is gone now, nothing of you lingers behind. It was a hard day. Words cannot even come close to the ache I feel in my heart without you. And Shelly is drinking heavily, lying about it on top of that and making things very difficult for everyone including me. I just can't do it anymore, Mama. With her. I'm sorry. I can't even stand the person she has become and she is so full of hate and anger for everyone.  I wish you were here because she would listen to you. For my sanity and that of my family I'm going to have cut her out of my life for awhile. I can't take her mental abuse anymore, not in the midst of losing you. I hope if you can, Mama, help her.  I pray for her soul, Mama.

I miss you. SO MUCH.