Dear Gracie

Dear Gracie,

The days have turned into weeks, the weeks now a month, and I feel like it was only yesterday that I was fighting for space in my bed. What I wouldn't give for that problem tonight.

I think that saying goodbye this time around has been harder than any other, except for the first, and I've struggled with understanding why this time was so hard. Maybe this time has been so hard for me because it all happened too fast. You were here, and then you were gone. The seemingly countless discussions on where you were going to live were too much for you, and too much for me. I tried so hard to reassure you that no matter what you wanted to do it would be OK with me - and I can see now that I was the one that needed reassurance.

Talking about something that is so hard to talk about isn't fair to you, and I know that. I'm so desperately in love with you that I sometimes can't see you for the child you are. You're still my baby, and at the same time I feel like you're much older and wiser than you really are. I hope that you're doing better now than you were doing then. Me? I'm not doing so great. I find myself tearing up just thinking about the times we'd spend together. I still struggle with how things played out, and how fast saying goodbye to you came and went. There will be a time when maybe all of this will make sense, and I'll look back at it and it won't feel so terrible. I am scared for that day to come, because if the day ever comes that having you here doesn't hurt more than anything I've ever felt than a part of me must have died, and I don't want that to happen.

It's happened before, and it took Mommy/Miyumi/Kelly to bring me back from the edge. Lonliness and indifference are two things that I've learned to adapt to, and I don't want to be that person anymore. I just want to be whole, and I only feel truly whole when I hear your voice in your room, or hear your little steps down the hall. I don't even go into your room anymore because it hurts so much that you're not in it. I keep asking myself why does this have to happen to me, and I know that there isn't really any answer for that. For all of the people in the world that don't give a shit about their children, here I am, only wanting to be with mine, and I don't have that right.

I can only hope that one day our time will come. I hope so much that you'll see me for the parent and person that I am, and that you'll find home in our house. Until then I can only sit here and wonder what you're doing, wonder if you're happy, and wonder if you ever think about me like I think about you. I miss you so much, I hope that in your life you never have to feel the way I feel whenever I think about you.

I love you.