Joyce

She is everywhere.
In the way I still reach for the phone
when something good happens.
In the recipes I cannot make
without tasting memory instead of food.
In the soft towels folded warm from the dryer,
in the scent of rain on pavement,
in every ordinary thing
love once touched.
I did not know
while living those moments
that they were becoming sacred.
I thought there would always be more Sundays.
More kitchen laughter.
More sleepy car rides home in the dark
with music humming low between us.
More chances to lean against her shoulder
without understanding
I was leaning against home itself.
My mother loved in quiet ways.
In cut fruit left waiting on the counter.
In tired eyes that still stayed awake for me.
In the way she remembered
every little thing I ever liked,
as if my happiness
was something worth studying.
No one warns you
how loud absence becomes.
How a house can keep breathing
after the heart of it is gone.
How grief slips into happy memories
and sits beside them forever.
Sometimes I laugh
and hear her in it.
Sometimes I catch myself saying her phrases,
using her tone,
holding compassion the way she did,
and for one aching second
it feels like she never left at all.
I think that is the cruelest part of love.
It does not leave with the person.
It stays.
It grows roots through your ribs.
It keeps reaching for someone
your hands can no longer hold.
If your mother is still here,
hug her longer than usual.
Listen when she repeats the same story again.
Sit beside her even when there is nothing to say.
One day you will ache
for one more ordinary moment
you once thought would last forever.
And if she is gone too,
then maybe you understand this emptiness
that somehow still carries warmth inside it.
Because even now,
after death, after silence, after time,
my mother is still loving me.
And I am still her daughter.
Her Kerri.