Life Without Mother

Dear Mom,

So much has happened since I last wrote. Katie and I went to see a movie last night before we parted ways this morning. The movie was bad in both of our opinions. The very name of the movie is ironic because it states the nature of the movie though the movie tried to justify the twisted ideology. It was called Me Before You and dealt with assisted suicide for a paraplegic who had been in an accident and lost all movement from his neck down due to a spinal cord injury. The argument made in the movie was that though the girl had changed his life, he still wanted to end his life because the life he now had wasn’t the one he had before and he couldn’t do to her what he wanted because of his injuries, yada yada yada. I did love when she called him out on his selfishness–that he had changed her life as well and would be breaking her heart (and his mother’s for that matter) in killing himself. But in the end she agreed to be there for him when he did it. Ugh! I just can’t even express how mad it made both Katie and I. We literally ranted the entire ride home with no debate! I guess it’s primarily our Christian backgrounds, but also what we’ve personally been through that made us so upset about it. I mean, like I’ve said before, I’d never want you to come back. God took you completely in His timing and I’d never reverse that or want you to leave that paradise with Him–I’m even jealous of you sometimes in that respect! But I’d never cut short the life He’s given me to live on this earth. To do that would be to say that I’m living on earth for myself, because the only reason He keeps us Christians here is to do His will and give Him glory on the earth. But, I suppose that movie is also an example of why we’re here: to truly love and bring the lost and broken to the feet of Jesus. Okay, second rant over.
Now for the fun part! Currently I am sitting in bed on the tenth floor of a hotel in New York City! It’s so wonderful to be back here in this beautiful city! This time it’s been nice to ride in the charter bus with the tour guide telling all of this trivia and really getting to see all of the details of the city, rather than merely trudging uphill in the beating sun to meet up for a concert in the hot streets of NYC in July (as I did three years ago). We toured a theater that had a room of Disney musicals’ memorabilia and the Museum of Natural History and the Empire State Building (I kept thinking of An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle!) and, of course, Times Square tonight. It was so fun being here, even if I was dead tired after not sleeping any last night. However, the whole day has been filled with thoughts of you and how you were supposed to be doing this trip with Mary Faith and how it would be different if you were here and how you’d react to everything and just stuff like that. Needless to say, you were–scratch that– are missed. I do pray that this will be a good opportunity for Mary Faith and I to bond before I leave for college. I want our relationship to be stronger, and for her to know that I’ll always be there for her. Honestly though, I just want to have a stronger relationship just to make sure and know that she isn’t forgetting the things you taught her or the things you taught me in high school that you aren’t here to teach her. I pray that I’m the good example I’m supposed to be as the big sister–and there’s even greater pressure with your example. Thanks, Mom. (Note sarcasm.)
But anyway, I better try to get some sleep to be just a little less tired tomorrow. (We have TWO plays to see tomorrow!) I love you!

Your daughter,
Hannah