Dear Mom,

This morning I woke up between the same creamy sheets, in the same yellow-green room that I have woken up in on this date nearly every year for the past decade. The plaid chair in the corner, covered in my clothes, the rattan shade with light peeking through, the brown-spotted white Pound Puppy on the bed; it’s all exactly the same.

Except, of course, that nothing is the same.

It’s Mother’s Day, and I struggle this year to wish you a happy one. The word happy gets stuck in my throat. It’s yet another celebration, another first that we now must endure.

I can’t forget that where there were two, there is now only one.

We weren’t all together last year. The year before, there were tense words exchanged and an epic storming off moment. The year before that, we made it through an entire trip into the city and a Broadway show without anyone crying. It was rare for us to be apart on this day; even rarer that we all escaped it unscathed by the silly squabbles you have when you don’t realize you won’t always have the next year as a do-over.

I want to go back and undo the quarrels. I want to shake that two-years-ago self and yell at her, just let this one go! I want to explain to us all that we need to be more careful with each other.

I want even more to go forward and somehow have Kelly be here with you now.

I try desperately to fill the space in your heart left behind in her absence. I imagine it has raw exposed edges, so I attempt to get inside without touching them, like a real life game of Operation. But no matter how much I expand, no matter how much I contort myself, the shape of me is not right for these holes. There will always be gaps that I cannot fill.

I will never be your second child.

I will never be the one who called you Baby Mommy.

I will never be Zoey’s mom.

I will never be the one who saved people.

I will never be the Kelly-shaped missing piece of your heart.

It fractures my own cracked heart a little more, not being able to heal you of this pain. Not being able to un-break you.

I can’t bring her back, and I can’t be Kelly, and I don’t know if it will ever be enough for either of us. But I can remember her, and I can help you remember.

I can remind you of how she used to shrug and say, I know, instead of I don’t know, a wad of grape gum always present in her toddler mouth. I can remind you of the little dimple in her left cheek, and the way the bottom of her fine blond hair curled up when she was two. I can remind you that she used to kiss her finger and touch the visor of her car when she went through a yellow light, and that she got excited when she noticed it was 11:11. I can remind you how she could administer a flu shot without any pain, and a finish strep test before you could even gag. I can remind you that people called her an angel.

I can remind you of what and who she loved: butterflies, singing, purple, her job, The Yankees, elephants, Josh Groban, babies, old people, Zoey, and, most of all, her Baby Mommy.

Last week, I was running errands when I noticed the Mother’s Day cards on display. I stopped to choose one for you, but was chosen by one instead. A card with a drawing of a serene-looking elephant, butterflies floating out of its trunk. A card that reduced me to tears in the middle of the West Hollywood Target. If Kelly could have designed a card for you, I imagine it would look like this. Its accents and envelope are my favorite seafoam green.

I don’t know if I believe in signs. I don’t know what I believe anymore. But this card feels like it could be from both of us, and I realize that what I can do for you is always acknowledge her, and you.

To remember our Belly, and to celebrate, today and every day, the mother who made us a family.

I remember her. I remember us.

I love you on this Mother’s Day, and on all days.

Katie

Mother’s Day 2012