Momma, oh how I wish you could be here with me, how I wish we could connect, end to end but you're not. You've been gone a long time now and I can't help but feel as though you've missed something. Not just something but everything: graduations, grandchildren, and so, so much more. We all miss you but I feel that my pain is somehow unique. Today I unpacked my things to start my new life and I lost your watch. I only lost it for a few minutes but it felt like you had slipped right through my hands, it's all I have. I don't have memories of you, not really anyway, and I was much too young to understand the value of keeping the memories I did have. I miss you, that I do know.

I still cry when I think of you, so many years later, I still mourn you and I can't help but think that makes me weak, but it shouldn't. I should be proud that I grew into the empathic daughter who feels everything in such a deep manner to that it nearly destroys me, I should understand that feeling isn't so bad and that you'd want me to understand all feelings, not just the ones that feel good. I have felt so many things about you over the last seventeen, nearly eighteen years but the one that's never faltered is my love for you and for people.

I feel love so intensely that it sometimes brings me immense pain but I believe you would've wanted it this way. You would've wanted me to know all things, and that includes pain. I have felt pain day in and day out, from my losing you to my very first heartbreak, I felt it all and I continue to because it all matters, just like every moment we had together matters.

I may not be able to remember much but I cherish the little things I do because I loved you, I still do, and I promise I always will. You are not just my mother but my hero, the more I learn about you, the more I learn about myself, where I came from and where I'm meant to be. I hope I make you proud and I hope you can forgive me for the moments that I didn't, I was learning and I still am. I will never be the perfect daughter but I'll always be your little girl. I love you momma and I hope that'll always be enough.