She was a whirlwind.
A beautiful flurry of kindness and compassion and sympathy stitched on the wings of an angel never meant to touch the ground.
She was a woman whose outstretched hand reached out and touched the lives of many like droplets of paint on a white canvas.
She inspired, recreated.
She molded her children to become what she was - maybe to become what she always wanted to be.
But she was everything. She was the best she could be.
But the best was not enough to protect her from falling onto that hospital bed. The best doctors. The best nurses. The best medicine.
The best was not enough to heal her pain.
The morphine which ran deep through her rich veins and engulfed her was not enough to cure her from the ****** aching in her.
The oh, shuddering throbbing that raked and wracked her body. The throbbing that shook the empire inside her, knocking down the little soldiers in which supported her and made her who she was.
And all this. This hurricane unfolded, as the children she made stood by and could only watch in anguish.
In regret, her son slams his fist against the grainy counter, tears like floods erupting as if a dam had been broken inside him.
"I'm losing her!"
He screams and shouts, throat raw with emotion.
As her daughter can all but stare, a string seconds away from snapping and back lashing like a flashback of her mother playing in her head, slapping her in the face back into reality.
Because just a month ago, in the sweltering heat of June of 2011, her son had graduated high school. He did his best.
And her daughter graduated middle school. She did her best.
Their mother was proud, clapping loud and clear through the faces of those in the crowd who did not matter to her children.
But the best did not save their mother.
No text book or diploma or certificate from the children or degrees or credentials from the doctors could cure her.
The woman laying in the practically snow white hospital sheets with the eerie beep beep beeping of the only lifeline she had was not saved.
By the best doctors, the best nurses, the best medicine.
Not even the kids she considered the best things in her life could do much, either.
However,
She was my mother.
She was the best.

i am not sure
where the end of the road
will take me today
i hope it takes me, at least, away
away from this small town in this sunny state
away from these suffocating walls
away from the ghosts of the faces of those i thought i once knew
away from the memories
of when you walked out the door
of when you left me for good
of when you tried to come back
when i thought you never would
and away
away from that time when you chose that new life over us
away from your constant grasping, craving my attention
as if we switched roles
as if i am now the parent instead and you are the child, instead
away from the childhood i once enjoyed
away from the
me-mor-ies
away from what i thought i could hold as mine and mine alone
away from what you took from me long ago

six years has done little to calm the constant aching in my heart; mourning is a fickle thing, given time, i've come to learn

that ache whenever i hear your favorite songs, or when my eyes flicker to the wrinkled photo i have of you on my car dashboard, engraved with a necklace of jade and a smile forever kind

seventy-two months has taught me that grieving is best done in private under my checkered covers and the pink blanket you gave to me when i was two, my face buried in my pillow

two thousand, one hundred ninety days has allowed me to better understand how to cope with the lingering hollowness that visits me from time to time when i shuffle past your old bedroom door at two in the morning, when i can’t sleep

fifty-two thousand, five hundred and sixty hours gifted me with the fragile courage to carry the burden of knowing i can’t hear your voice again when i need it the most

i'm missing you now more than ever, you know.