Saying Goodbye and a Bunch of Other Things

Dearest daughter,

I know how hard today was for you. It is never easy to say goodbye to someone you love. It is even more difficult, when it isn’t your choice. Just know that she is no longer suffering and is where she was telling everyone she was ready to go to. She loved you and was loved by many people around her. Even though she was terribly mean to me and made my life pure hell at times, I know the place she held in your life and for that, I am terribly sorry that you have to say goodbye to her.

I guess we all have an expiration date of some type. I mean, none of us will get out of here alive. We all will one day die. That is a fact of life. Learning how to live with the loss of someone you love, is a lesson we all at some point learn. Unfortunately, I had to learn about loss a lot earlier than I would have liked to in life but through learning about it, I feel like I gained a better understanding of what it was to live.

Since we never know when our time will come, we should grab at all we can to live life to the fullest. I don’t mean live haphazardly or without any care in the world. I just mean to try to live a balanced, yet full life. Life is what you make of it. Every day you can choose to take an active role to either show someone love, treat someone with kindness, help a stranger, learn a lesson, gain knowledge, take a chance or a variety of other things. Just try each day to be a better version of the you from yesterday. You can never go wrong if you do that.

Do things that bring you joy and that you find fulfillment in. Since we are only given a limited number of hours on this earth and none of us know how long we each have, you might as well make sure that you do something that you enjoy. Be the you that you are proud to be. I am sure you might look back and one day say that I encouraged you to pursue a job that you loved and one where you could financially support yourself. Well, that comes from a whole mountain of pain that I had to endure that changed the trajectory of my life. I never want you to ever be in a position of weakness where you are having to work three jobs to make ends meet and you have to make choices over what you would want to do and what you have to do in order to survive. It isn’t a pretty position to be in ever. I think what affected me the most was being put in that vulnerable situation without any familial support and having to figure it all out on my own all while being bullied and threatened by the one we both know just couldn’t let go of me in some weird way.

That is why I write to you. Maybe not as often as I should, or I think I should. But I write so you can learn from my mistakes and have a more successful go at life. I know I am not that old right now but I am old enough to know that I am at an age where I really can’t recreate myself that much. I am kind of on a path that got diverted when you were just 4 years old. So, I make the best of the path I am on. I try to see the beauty in every day and I work hard to help at least one person each day of my life to make their journey just a little bit easier than it was the day before. That is what drives me and gives me purpose in life.

I love you my daughter. My best friend. My little one all grown up. One day, when you are a mom, I think you will see how much I love you.

Mom