Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Wherever Whenever However You Are

Dear Mom,

I love you and I miss you. For so many years while you were here, alive, I feigned the strength I saw in you. I tried my best to emulate your taciturn demeanor, to be just like you: intelligent, discerning, prudent, wise. I hurtled toward the future frantically as if you had told me to run from something disastrous, and on my way I found an image in the light ahead of me. I built up dreams and hopes and also petty desires. I stripped away the visage of the pale, brown eyed, frizzy-black haired child you sat on your knee so often. I wanted to overcome all the turbulent times we had after you and Dad split up and suppress all the frail and sentimental emotions gnawing at my gut. You were my rock and my lighthouse, my reason for sailing into the uncertain waters of tomorrow. You were the wind in my sails and the sun on my back. You were a love song I remember from my infancy, that haunted me and filled me with longing for something pure, delicate, and nurturing.

As a child I could bring tears to my eyes just ruminating on something melancholy. It was a selfish habit that I was destined to outgrow. But I brought tears to my eyes again when you were gone. Over and over again I cried, and summoned pain to my heart to mourn you as I felt was proper and necessary. I wondered what kind of world I would live in without you, knowing already that without the gentleness you gave me as a child I was already becoming stoic, reserved, calloused. You wrote to me once to not be calloused, but the words didn't resonate with me. I am calloused today. I dread what I've become without you. I have loved and lost in this life without you, and it feels empty to have never even told you about her, nor introduced the two of you. You only knew me as a boy, and never saw the man I grew into--the man I am growing into.

My words are as my tears, Nang, flowing out sloppily in self-absorption. I wrote today to say I love you and I miss you, because I never told you often enough when you could have heard me. I regret not being with you in your last moments. I regret not telling you more often how I love you and why I love you. Eight years ago I had to learn to say goodbye to you, but now I feel it is time to just tell you I love you, wherever, whenever, however you are.

Love,

Your anako,
Delmar