January 6....

....has been one of my worst and best days since 2007. It is a day that i dread like no other and yet it is a day that my heart feels thankful. I often don't know how to "mark" this day; it's certainly not a day that calls for celebration and yet, well, it is a day that calls for celebration. It's just hard to celebrate when your heart still aches. I usually start this day off either recieving or sending a text to the one person who i knows and feels the same way about this day: my sister.

My Mama died on this day at 7:30 am from cancer.

Of all of the not-so-good days i've had in my life, well, this day ranks number 1.

Of all of the good days i've had in my life, well, this day ranks number 1.

I miss my Mama more than i can ever put into words. I miss her voice, her laugh, her off-key way of singing, her beauty, her love of food and cooking and most of all, i miss her phone calls that came often. I miss her love of the holidays and how she would bake special things and cook favorite things for my sister and i. I miss her presence in my life and it hurts my heart that she is not physically present in my daughter, Emma's life. Because, oh, how they would have loved each other....

...and this is what makes this day such a not-so-good day for me.

I am thankful that my Mama isn't in pain anymore. I'm thankful that cancer, that horrible bastard of a disease, is gone from her body. I'm grateful that she is done will pills, chemo, radiation, loosing her hair, being sad, and watching life though her big bedroom window, wanting desperately to be healthy again so she could be with her grandchildren. I am grateful and thankful that she is with her mother, her father, her brother, her older sister and best of all, she is in heaven with God.

And that is what makes this day, well, a bittersweet, good day for me.

I miss you so very much, Mama....so very much.

Love you still so very much,

~"Annika"