Life Without Mother

Dear Mom,

Today was supposed to be your 52nd birthday. Dad sent me a picture of the cake they got for the occasion and I wished I could be there with them (for the cake of course).
I know I haven’t written in a while and I would have to blame that on my busy-doing-nothing college schedule. Yeah, I know, bad excuse. To catch you up, I moved in last Monday, took my French placement exam (during which I tested out of French 101 and 102–though I’m pretty sure it was by accident…) on Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday I had my first college classes. (Little side note, I wore overalls on the first day, just like I did the first day of public school in the fourth grade!) The only class I really like so far is my Honors English. Out of five classes. Well, and my Honors First Year Experience class isn’t too bad either–I like the professor–but that’s practically a blow-off. But Mom, I’m pretty sure French and Algebra are probably going to be the death of me, one for its difficulty along with my lack of interest and the other for its lack of difficulty (it’s soooooo easy) as well as lack of interest.
On the flip side of classes that will most likely kill me…
I LOVE COLLEGE! I got plugged into a church here (the same one I went on the beach retreat with) and I love it! And I also got involved with the BCM here and next week will be trying the recruitment for Sigma Phi Lambda–I met some of the girls at the beach retreat.   So much happening and it’s great!
But the truth is, I got that same homesick feeling that I got back in June at summer camp. The homesick feeling for a home that isn’t there anymore. Though I remembered your birthday, today was still just an ordinary day. That is, until I saw a post or two and got a couple of texts reminding me of the fact that I don’t even get the choice of calling you.
Remember how I wrote a few letters ago about how I have a different perspective of this last year? How now I don’t see you through the lens of a hurt child but through the lens of a healed past? Well, I wish I could have one last conversation with you. Just one now. Not back then. Even if God had allowed you to stay here for one more day back in April, I wouldn’t have wanted it then. I wouldn’t have known what to say or would have been able to say the right things. I wouldn’t have had the understanding from a perspective of healing to tell you “Thank you” for being there my senior year. Now I can only look back at what I can remember now as good memories without the frayed edges and wish you were here now.
Honestly, I’ve tried so hard to block you out this week. Specifically, the thoughts that keep popping up of how you were here–here at Louisiana Tech! Here in the very dorm in which I am now living. You walked around these streets. You attended class, maybe in some of the same classrooms I now have class! Did you sit in the same desks? Some things I know are different, but you were here only thirty years ago, walking the same steps I am, starting out your life away from your family. Did you even imagine what your life would look like when you first began as an eighteen-year-old? Did you imagine that God would lead you to the man who you would spend the rest of your life with? Did you imagine that at some point down the road you’d have a daughter with coloring completely opposite to you who would follow in your footsteps? Could you even have imagined the idea that you wouldn’t be there for her graduation?
None of us know the hour. The hour Jesus will return, or merely the hour He will call us home. How can we imagine that? We just have to live each day as the gift that He’s given us to spend time with those we love, living for Him in appreciation that this day, this time is not our own.
I wish He might have given you a little more time. Well, really it would have been beneficial only to those of us who must stay in this lost world. But no, He took you to be with Him and now it’s not just a party on your birthday, it’s a party forever.

Your daughter,
Hannah