Life Without Mother

Dear Mom,

Tonight I’m writing this letter on my phone. Unfortunately, my laptop was stolen on our trip to New York (hence my lack of letters the past few days). Despite that event, the trip was fun and I have to say that the call from a NYPD detective today was pretty cool- it’s like on Castle or something! (Not really, but still.) Well, the trip was fun to a degree. I began it already exhausted, so I wasn’t quite my normal, totally energetic self. Then there was the overhanging shadow in my thoughts of how you were supposed to be the one on the trip. How do I compete with you as a chaperone when I am neither mom or experienced adult? During quite a few situations I kept thinking about how I wish you were here to text and ask about a certain situation and then I’d remind myself how if you were here, you’d be on the trip instead and I wouldn’t even be in the situations. But apparently God had planned that I would go in your place. Dad and I had a really good two hour conversation about the trip and other stuff going on in the house. Stuff that worries me. It’s kind of cool though, in thinking back how you and I didn’t always have super long conversations or a whole lot of them, but lately I’ve had a couple of meaningful conversations with Dad per week and most of them exceeded an hour. I love it! I definitely feel much closer to Dad now as he tells me things he might not tell the rest of the family yet or us venting about stuff (or really, me venting and him listening) or just talking about our feelings (which we’ve both obviously had a lot of lately). It makes me wonder how dropping me off at college will go at this rate.. Good thing I have a cellphone!

Your daughter,
Hannah