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| My Dearest Cara, Ten Years, and for me it feels like it has been an eternity. Ten years since I have been able to put my arms around you. Ten years since I have heard your laughter or have seen your face. Soon it will be eleven Thanksgivings without you, eleven Christmas days that you were not here to share with us. Eleven birthdays that you have had in heaven and not here with me. A close friend said recently that this grief eats at your soul. How true those words are and it says it all so clearly. It does eat at your soul. Each year I tell myself that it will get easier but it never does. Life goes on and I stay as busy as possible but the pain is never far away, the loss remains clear and I just spend my time trying to not think about it. But this year I will let myself remember you. As I set up this page I remembered that you did not like the color purple, but I think you meant that in reference to clothes and will not mind the color of this page. It was the silly dress that you had to wear to please a friend when she ask you to be her Maid of Honer for her wedding. You hated that fluffy lavender dress. Still you wore it to please Kim and did not spoil her wedding plans with complaints. I remember that you hated butterflies, yet often I see them and somehow I feel you send them too me. Just because you would know that the sight of a butterfly will make me remember and bring you closer to me. They seem to have a calming affect on me now as if they say, It is okay. Things will work out alright. I remember your love of seals and never pass a seal of any kind without wanting to buy it for you. All those seals that decorated your room and that you loved so much. The day we found the place in the harbor where the mothers gave birth to all of the babies and how much you enjoyed seeing them. I remember the laughter and I miss that so much. Your constant joy at little things and coming home to tell me all the silly things that had happened to you each day. The jokes and the joy of just teasing and playing with people. You were a great tease. I never see a baseball game and not think of all the times you made me come to watch you play. Also the night you dragged me out onto the field because the team was short a female and if you didn't find one they would have to forfeit their game. I had never played slow pitch in my life and I could hit a ball thrown in fast pitch but that high arching pitch was terrible for me to try to judge. Even when I finally hit the thing, it sure didn't go very far, but you didn't have to forfeit your game so I guess that was what mattered. I was already 55 years old but you refused to let me sit in peace and just watch the game be forfeited. So many memories and they all play through my mind daily. The busy little girl with a pretend monster for a playmate. The little girl with pigtails who preferred to play with the boys because girls did not want to play ball, and wanted to play with dolls. But you did have one close friend who also was a tomboy. The teenager who really just wanted to enjoy her friends and activites and could see no reason to go steady or get serious. Your love of animals and how much you enjoyed playing with your cats and your dog. You, just wanting to help everyone. All those years of memories I will accept and remember knowing they will bring me pain but they also bring you closer to me. If someone were to come to me today and say "I have this magic pill that will wipe out all of your pain, but you will have to give up all of your memories." I would refuse to take it. You are too precious to forget, and I will accept the pain and keep my memories. So this year I will take time to remember and know how Blessed I was to have you in my life. I will be Thankful for those years that I did have you and remember what a wonderful daughter you were. But ten years without you has been an eternity. I miss your laughter so much and the world is not as wonderful with you not in it. Your loving mother, always Netta |