Hey Mom. Got time for a chat?
Dear Mom,
Eight years now. I keep expecting this to get easier to write, and in some ways it does, but I still sit down every August 2nd not entirely sure what I’m going to say until I start saying it.
The biggest news: we actually did it, we moved to New Orleans. Last August, right after I wrote to you, we packed up Frisco and made it happen. It’s been almost a year now, and it feels right in a way I didn’t fully expect. I’ve written plenty about the city itself elsewhere on here, but I wanted you to know directly — we’re settled. There’s a version of you in my head walking through the Quarter loving every second of it, and I believe that version completely.
We did a lot of moving around this year, actually. In March and April, we took a Caribbean cruise with Brian and Randy — it was part of Brian’s retirement send-off. You met them a few times over the years and always spoke fondly of them, so I thought you’d want to know they’re still very much part of our lives. Then in June and into July, Chris and I went to Europe, partly to celebrate Michele graduating high school, and partly for a family trip with Jason, Jamie, and their daughter Izzy. Michele was one of our exchange students, and I know you never actually got the chance to meet him, but if you’d been around, you absolutely would have. You met every single one of them, one way or another.
Not everything this year was good. Do you remember Cabby from your visit in 2014? You two only met the once, but you heard plenty about her after that — she became a permanent member of Chris’s and my family, after Aurelia moved, and I know I talked about her to you more than a few times over the years. Anyway, she passed away in late April. It was hard in the specific way that losing a dog is hard, which is its own thing. Merle (our new dog) missed her terribly for a week or so. They were remarkably close … sometimes too close. He has settled down into his new “one dog family” lifestyle. Interestingly, there have been some discussions – more than one – where it is rumored that Cabby is haunting our home (or the neighbors home). If you happen to bump into her, maybe ask her to stop.
As far as family goes, I did want to give you a couple of updates. In late June, your niece — my cousin — Tanya passed away. Health complications she’d apparently been dealing with for a while, which I didn’t know until after. I wish I’d made more of an effort to stay close with her while she was here. It’s pushed me to actually reach out to some of my other cousins instead of letting that side of the family drift the way it has. I don’t know if that’s overdue or just timing, but it’s happening. No other news on the family front, that I am aware.
I asked myself this year whether there was some specific moment that made me think of you — the way past letters always seem to have one. Honestly, I couldn’t point to one. It’s smaller than that now, more scattered — a passing thought here and there, “she would have loved that,” and then it’s gone. I don’t love admitting that, but it’s the truth, and I’d rather tell you the truth than manufacture a moment that didn’t happen.
If I’m honest about what I’d actually ask you, it’s still your iPhone password. Would’ve saved me a lot of trouble. That one’s a joke, mostly.
The thing I keep coming back to this year, though, isn’t really a question. It’s Leonie. Eight years of you not being here means eight years of her not having what the two of you had. I know you’d complain about it sometimes — the day-to-day of it, being her full-time person — but looking back now, knowing what came after, it was something remarkable. I don’t think I understood that while you were doing it. I think she still feels the absence of that life more than she can say, and I think about that more than I used to.
Looking ahead, we’ve already got two cruises planned for next year. I think about all those conversations we used to have about your next trip, whatever it was going to be, and how you always needed to have something on the calendar to look forward to. I never really clocked it as a lesson at the time, but I don’t know how else to explain why I do the exact same thing now. Whether it’s genetic or just something that rubbed off on me from all those years of listening to you plan, I couldn’t say. But having something ahead of me — a trip, a birthday, time with the people still here — is what makes writing to you like this feel less like grief and more like an update. I think you’d understand that better than anyone.
That’s the year. Some of it good, some of it hard, all of it still happening without you, which I still haven’t gotten used to and probably never will.
I love you, Mom. I miss you. Always.
With love,
James (your number three son)
