20th Anniversary - I Miss You Mama

For my favorite girl...

I have been avoiding my pens for a good reason. A good excuse not to break down like a small girl and tell the world how much I miss you. Something I thought time would've fixed by now as they say it heals everything but this wound won't heal. I still miss you twenty years later and as badly as I did at fifteen.

Fifteen...

The age that death shook my being after taking away the only pillar I had in my life. The age I was when you took your last breath that drizzling Thursday morning in 98. Also, the same age that I realized life can go south any second. That relatives are not always family regardless of them being 'blood'.

In between the last two decades...

Womanhood found me. It evaporated my adolescence overnight as I tried to fit in your shoes. Your very big shoes. I failed of course... miserably. So life taught me how to come up with my own custom-made miniature boots to tackle what would be my life. In the process, I met motherhood at an age you would've not been proud of. In my defense, I was running from your abusive relatives.

Your daughters became the pillars that you were. They held their eldest up until we found our way in this chaotic world somehow. They turned into fine women, good mothers, and beautiful souls. You would be so proud of them.

If you were still here...

Tomorrow you'd have turned an amazing fifty-three. Today you'd have celebrated one of your grandsons' 12th birthday. And your eldest grandson sitting for his final exams to join university next year. Or how your remaining five grandchildren are doing so well despite the challenges we as a family have encountered.

But you died yesterday two decades ago at 33. It still hurts. Even at my 35.

I miss you, my favorite girl... Continue resting in peace.

Also posted on my whaleshares.