Mom, I miss you.

I miss the way you could make me feel safe, even if those moments were rare, fleeting and didn’t last.

Even if there were more times I felt scared of you, I still miss how your arms felt around me when you hugged me as I broke beneath the weight of it all.

When the world felt too heavy you still had this ability to make it feel manageable.

You had this way that could pick me up when I fell to pieces on the ground.

In those moments it seemed you finally let that wall around you fall also.

When you stopped being cold, harsh, and scary.

When you stopped the pain by letting yourself feel mine.

There were times you made it ok for me to crumble. There were moments when you felt like home.

Like you were the only person who could see how much I was hurting.

But you also hurt me.

A lot.

Leaving too many scars to count.

And I’ve spent years trying to understand how both of those things could be true.

How both could exist.

Nightmares of you plague my sleep.

Memories I wish I could burn from my brain still swirl around in my mind.

Memories that haunt me, that I wish weren’t real.

Sometimes I wish I could forget how comforting your voice could be and those moments you held me when I was sick or scared.

Because remembering it hurts and makes the loss feel even deeper.

I needed you to protect me. To help me.
I needed you to love me in a way that didn’t also break me.
I needed you to choose me over the drugs, over the alcohol, over the pain.

And still, now, I don’t understand why at this moment, in this hospital, with all the fear and pain I’m feeling tonight, scared for tomorrow’s outcome. It’s suddenly you that I want to hug me, and reassure me as you did in those rare moments.

The moments I saw glimpses of the real you.

The moments you acted like a mother.

I carry both the comfort and the pain you gave me.
I carry the love and the loss.

But I will not let the hurt you inflicted upon me, define me.
And I will not keep breaking just to keep your memory alive as you choose to fade away.

As you choose to die.

I needed you but you weren’t there the way I needed, and not the way you should have.

You used my pain to get what you wanted.

But I’m still here.

I survived you,

And still love you.

I’m still breathing.

I’m still trying.

And that is enough.