June 23rd, it has been an entire month since you passed away and yet, you are not gone. You are in my dreams, every night. I am trying to change the outcome, trying to do something different, trying to think of what I missed, what if I had made different choices, the right choices. Did I make the right choices?

You are with me during the day. It seems everyday there is something I read, something I hear, something I smell that brings you alive in my mind. Words of wisdom, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” or “beauty is as beauty does’ or maybe just “God is so good.”

Saturday, Chris came home from the store with yellow crook-necked squash. Oh how I loved the squash casserole you would make with cheese, green chilies baked to a soft gooey consistency of mac and cheese except with a yellow vegetable.

I look in the mirror and I see you staring back at me. People would always say we looked alike but I never saw it as much as I do now. At your funeral, your dear friend Leslie came to me and said, “If ever a day you looked liked your mother, today is the day.” Is this how it is, from this day forward I am the living replica of who you were?

Yes, we look alike, but we were different in so many ways. I am more bling, you were more practical. You never painted your nails, never wore more makeup than lipstick. You loved cotton and white, from socks to undergarments and I know you never owned red knickers.

I am more outspoken and sass, you were more patient and kind. You had endless faith and mine often waivers. Your poetry is all about how much you love God and how good God has been to you; mine is about life and perceptions and thankfulness.

Because we lived so far apart, I think some days I don’t really realize you are gone. I get up and think you are there, in Texas sitting your recliner with Precious in your lap watching Andy Griffith in Matlock or listening to the Gaither family or reading your bible. You probably have a big glass of ice tea with lemon and will have a baked potato with lots of butter and cheese for lunch.

I will never have answers to the questions in my dreams. I know that you were suffering and that you would not have wanted to continue living that way. However, knowing does not, for now, end the doubt in my head.

I hope you have had a wondrous first month in heaven with your Lord. I know I teased you once because you loved artist depictions of Him and I said that you were going to get to heaven and not recognize Him. Your response, “OH YES I WILL” and I’m am sure you did. Have a fabulous day mother, and even though I was the “bossy one,” all my actions were done out of love.