everywhere

[Ondene Nash]

Her hair on her brush, her toothbrush still on the counter, her weird gourmet sauces in the fridge, her bobbypins

in weird places, her last shopping list in my purse, fingerprints on car mirror, items I pass in the grocery store that I always got for her, things I want to show her, tell her, her footprints I think I hear, the tablets full of her poetry; the

exquisite/sad/tortured poetry, the friends expressing their sorrow that I resent because they had long abandoned her, the people that are clearly "over it" when I still have a gut wrenching/can't breathe kick in the gut several times a day

The home we shared for 25 years that I hate as it and her room were where she was so tortured for so long.  The last boyfriend who cruelly left her, yet says his heart is broken but forgets he broke hers. The lack of Mother's Day cards to hold onto, the lack of happy m.emories over those long painful last years.  

People who tell me to have a nice day, 

Every minute of every day, everywhere; Sad music and TV hurts.  Happy stuff reminds me of what she will not

ever experience.  Anything mother/daughter is brutal.  The lack of her constant messes that we argued so often about.  I long for those messes.  The condolence cards that make me weep uncontrollably.  The cards I didn't get, the

people who didn't even bother to call. Mostly, her suffering from terrible physical and emotional pain.  Her suffering 

and my inability to help or even comfort her, let alone save her.  I should have saved her.  There must have been a way.  

[Jodie Baczkowski]

Everywhere, what a perfect explanation.  I do feel your pain and wish I could find a way to ease mine.  Have you found anything at all to help?  I too lost my daughter in a car accident in November. It still feels like yesterday and there wasn't anything I could do to help her. How do we get through this?  I'm so sorry for your loss!