rackers co

I started this morning with a Mumma Rozza breakfast; breakfast of champions. Chocolate and a cup of tea, for the day that should have been your 56th birthday.

Amidst the new year buzz and the phenomenon that is Marie Kondo, clearing out is always on the cards. Drawer after drawer I have emptied and now they all lay upon my floor… probably to go untouched until March.

I get lost in memories as I find old diaries, letters and birthday cards. How do you Kondo things that are virtually useless and just take up space, but the minute you hold them you are overloaded with memories of people who are no longer here?

Amongst it I find an old diary of things I wrote to mum for the months after she passed. It’s easy to forget the feelings of old, and everything rushes back when seeing the handwritten musings of 19 year old heartbreak. I wrote to her as if she was right there, a conversation I wish I was having.

Everything seems so stupid compared to losing mum, it just feels so strange not being able to sit down and talk to her like usual. I feel like I didn’t tell her how much I love her enough while she was here.

What I don’t understand is how everyone can go back to their normal lives and expect me to, too.

I didn’t know it was possible to feel this lost and alone with so many people surrounding me.

In almost every one, it’s signed off with,

Can you come home now, ma?

I feel so far from that 19 year old girl who was trying to navigate everything in the worst moments of her life. Throwing all my energy into creativity and trying to make something out of the mess in my head, the mess in the world, the mess we are all living in.

I remember being plagued by dreams of you, and waking to only lose you again. Now you visit me in my dreams. I get to see you and laugh with you, and yet, I have this deep-seated understanding that when I wake, you won’t be there. I am just lucky enough to see you in my dream world.

I miss the embrace of a mum’s hug, one you can’t find in anything else. Being able to come home, to call, to talk to someone who just gets everything you are feeling. Where in the hell would I be if you were still here?

How do you describe to someone new in your life, someone who was never lucky enough to meet her, that this feeling you carry around; these memories, this profound love, this something that exists in every corner of you, is because of the one magical person? How she was everything; hilarious, dark humoured, light in every way – home in a person, laughter in a cup of tea, comfort in one phone call. She was so fierce with her love for all of us and so passionate in the protection of her family.

Happy birthday to you, the most magnificent angel to ever grace the earth.

I understand now that this is no longer your home. You were called home when it was time to turn your scars into wings.