Dear Mom and Gabi Bear,

My breath halts even at the thought of writing to you both…of seeing your names side by side. Together. Imagining the two of you dancing among the clouds and watching me stumble through the dark here below.

Days like Mother’s Day are the hardest. Yet, I am grateful. I am grateful that I experienced the security and confidence of a mother’s love and had the privilege to share that with my own little girl. I am grateful for the signs you send me, both nuanced and overt, that affirm my soul’s most sincere belief: You are so very close although just beyond my grasp.

When I prepared to go to college, I imagined having one of those fancy Lane hope chests. I would see the girl and her mother on the brochure, passing down varsity cheerleading sweaters, maybe pieces of china…I never got my Lane hope chest, so when you died, mom, and a few years after I graduated from college, I hungrily gathered any materials of yours that I could find to try to piece together the trail from girlhood to womanhood. Finding a craft…Taking a husband…making a home…becoming a mother…