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Somebody That I Used to Know (Gotye cover) - Ingrid Michaelson
mom,
Two years. 
It’s hard for me to say anything new because I think I’ll never feel any differently about you or your death. I don’t imagine I’ll feel any more closure than I do now (which is not much). I’ll never get to debrief with you and find the answers to my questions or gain a greater understanding of us and where we were when you died. I go to my memories, but since they’re so tied to emotions my mood usually dictates what I can remember — so I still have to put the different pieces together myself.
Some days I’m angry and only remember when I was angry at you; some days I’m sad and remember times when you were sad. Some days all I can remember is the time you hit me after Nana died. But some days it’s the time you told that joke about the cat in the drive-thru line at McDonald’s and we both actually peed our pants laughing between the pay and food windows. Some days I just remember you coming in and flopping down on my bed after we’d had a huge fight, neither of us saying anything, just being with each other until we’d silently made amends and you’d leave. I wonder why we fought so much. Sometimes it seemed like we were fighting just to fight, just because that was what we did with each other. I remember our New Year’s parties. I remember you with the dogs. You picking me up from middle school one Halloween dressed as a cow, udders made out of rubber thimbles and all. How when I was little, I couldn’t go to sleep unless you said, “I love you too, baby,” so we’d yell “I love you” back and forth from our bedrooms – sometimes three or four times – until you finally said baby at the end. I remember the time when I was seven and you weren’t satisfied with how I’d cleaned my room, so you threw everything out of my drawers, broke my Lego projects, unmade my bed, and told me to have everything immaculate by morning or else. Some days it’s Christmases — oh god, the Christmases. Our trips to England. Meeting Clare, seeing you on a horse. Your irreplaceable breakfast potatoes. I loved Sunday breakfasts with Nana and Poppa. The chicken suit you sent me in college, wrapped up in a box with no note or explanation, save three pictures of you in it. How you could give me a look in the most serious of moments and we’d both just bust up laughing. And some days I can’t remember anything; I can’t even picture your face.
You and me – we were a jumble. Occasionally, something random will come to me and offer a new bit of clarity and I’ll feel like I figured something out about us. But today, like most days, it all still feels like one big mystery.
Out of it all, and above it all, I know we loved each other. At least I know that. Over anything, I’m glad I know that. Maybe, eventually, that will be closure enough.
Love you, Mama.
C
