Dear Eema, 

i was doing okay. i really was. i went on auditions, i wrote a little bit (but not my usual mass amount) i went out with friends and i even went sailing. and in the midst of all of that i've been cleaning out your beloved condo and going through your things and in doing so, i didn't fall apart. i was impressed with myself and surprised. "wow! i am so together!" 

but then something happened. 

i remember the exact moment. i was sailing back from catalina with peter and it was nighttime. it was a very dark night. 
something about the darkness... 
something about the coming home... 
i got so deeply... suddenly... mad. 
maybe it was the thought that now, in this coming home,  my normal life will have to be begin again. but, i have no idea what normal is without you. i don't know anything about the new normal and i'm pissed off that i have to discover it. 

i guess this is the mad stage of grief. because that's how i feel. friends want to see me and i'm so grateful to have so many wonderful friends but i don't want to talk. about anything sometimes. you and i, we've been through so much. we used to talk about your inevitable death when you were healthy. you were worried about how i would react because of our closeness. when i look back at my journals i have passages that read, "no one will ever understand me the way that eema does." sure, i was being a melodramatic teenager and that statement has since proven to not be the case, but still... that's some intense closeness there. 

it's been a little more than two months now and the silence is deafening. one day it may be peaceful, this particular silence, but that day is not now. i keep having the thought, "i now have to do the rest of this without you. alone." of course i'm not alone but it's all just so... different. 

i'm feeling conflicted about things. i want to be around those who love me and yet, i want to be alone. 
i want to run away and yet, i want to do nothing at all. 
i don't know. 
i've experienced grief before but this losing a mother thing has really thrown me for a loop. 

i'd throw myself into my job but i don't have one. i mean, i do... i go on auditions, but then the audition is over, so then what? i haven't been able to set my writing goals the way i usually do. that's the thing about being your own boss, it's not always an easy path to motivation. especially when you have such a kind, sweet, understanding boss like i do. oh, good. humor. thank god i've still got that.

i'm rambling now and it feels strange to post something publicly that i would usually just write in my journal but some people have reached out to me and have told me that these letters have helped them with their own grief. so, for them, i will post this sad, mad, in mourning ramble in hopes that they will feel less alone in their own sad, madness. 

i often think of the time after my dog, lucy, died you saw me a few days later and in amazement, through your own tears over lucy's death you said, "you are so strong. you are much stronger than i am."  i don't know why you said it but maybe that knowledge gave you the strength to know that i would be okay, no matter what. 
you died six weeks later.

i miss you and missing you isn't easy. 
but i will be okay. 
love,
annie