Dear Mother,

It's been nine years since the last mother's day that we spent together. Nine years since the day I held your hand and caressed your check, whispering words of gratitude and regret into your ear. Nine years since the day you left me.

I know I should get over it and move on; and I have. Yet every year on this day, the day that I should be hugging you and fixing you dinner, I go to the cemetery and place the flowers upon your grave. With my chest heaving, my eyes blinded by tears, I beg you once again not to leave me.

I'm fully grown. I'm independent. I'm quite capable of raising my own children. I'm everything you raised me to be and then some. I know your proud of me, but I ache to hear it from you. I ache to call you when I'm having a bad day. I ache to tell you about a new recipe, a book, or a T.V. show that I want to share with you. Most times I can pretend it's just another day and I'll see you tomorrow; but tomorrow never comes. My hand reaches for the phone, I'll walk into your house, I'll turn to speak to you and I just expect you to be there. Nine years. Nine years and I still expect you to be there. When your not there, when your not there for me, the hurt, the pain, the abandonment, cuts deep and fresh into a wound that just won't heal.

This day of beauty, this day of spring, this day of expressing love to mother's world wide. This is the day you left me. This is the day I cry with longing for the want of a mother's touch. I should just get over it, but I can't, I won't. Getting over it means letting you go for good, and the hurtful pain, aching longing and consistently searching for you are all I have left. The memories of what was and what could have been. If I let go of that, then I've lost you for ever.

I love you momma, I'll never let you go.