Photographs

[Miraculously found from Dec 9 '08]

About 20 minutes ago I was sitting in my livingroom crying and hyperventilating a bit, due to a sudden realization that my mother is dead. 4 years too late? Yes. But it happens every year. Every single year around this time I remember that my life is missing something, and my mind has never quite wrapped around that. Every once in awhile I sit down and try very hard to make sense of it all. I try to remember her face, her voice, and how she smelled, and then I tell myself that the person I am remembering is gone. But it doesn't really add up. Yes, I know my mom died, and I know everything that went along with it. The facts are all there. But a few moments ago, I was looking through my photoalbum of her, and staring at her face, and it doesn't really make sense. Because I can look deep into the eyes of the photos, and remember when the photo was real, but it's a memory, and it's like that person isn't a part of me anymore, because although the memories and feelings are there, when I look into the face, that person isn't really a person... it could just as easily be someone from a movie I've watched over and over. And that scares me. Because I love my mom and I miss her every day and I have so many memories that drive me to tears, but trying to connect the person to the events hurts too much for the connection to be made. For it to really make sense. I just really want it to make sense. 

However. I don't want to end this on that note. 
So I wont. 
Because, I found a picture. 
I was talking to Chris, and I remembered the photoalbum my Aunt gave me for christmas last year. It was something she'd been working on since my mom passed away. A photo album of pictures from the time my mom was a baby, up until a month before she died. 
And I found a picture I'd never really noticed before. The last picture of my mom. It's of my mom and I... and I was clearly caught off guard and I look terrible and my mom looks tired and a little too pale. But it's my mom and I. Proof that, at some point, we sat beside eachother and our arms touched. 
And there are tons of photos of my mom and I. The photo album is chock full of them. But this one is different. In this photo I am not a blond 5 year on sitting on my moms lap. I am fifteen, and I bear a pretty striking resemblance to the person I am now. My mom is beside me on the couch and you can tell that before they photo was taken, we were laughing. And not mommy and five year old girl laughing; genuine laughing. A girl on the brink of adulthood (or so I liked to believe at the time) laughing with her mother, because we were friends. It was proof that once upon a time, four years ago, our arms touched and she was my best friend.