This is where I begin, all over again.

if only i could write to her.  speaking would be too much.  just to write and know she read my words.  it's been more than two years, and you'd think i'd be over it.  that i wouldn't still break down when i'm alone... after a half bottle of wine.  but, the problem is that i am it.  i am so much today defined by her absence.  so much so that i wouldn't exist now if she hadn't died then.  so, it's always there.  At every moment some bit of me is thinking about it... maybe the tiniest little unconscious sliver.  it's there, instead of her being here.

i'm propelled by efforts to absolve myself from what i now know i should have done.  and absolution from the resentment i hold for how she was.  how she wouldn't accept it... and wouldn't let anyone else, either.  now that remains.  if only she could have been like our grandmother, hard edged until the end.  but our grandma was probably not so forged at 45.  that comes with time, and with that, the luxury to accept mortality.

i am so sorry, Holli.  that you died, that you didn't want to.  that you had so many things you wanted and didn't get.  i'm so sorry you don't get to see ava now.  i'm so sorry the end was such a fucking mess, that none of us knew what to do.  that i didn't know what to do.  i promised you it would be ok, and i knew then it was a lie.

so these are the only words i would write to her.  on the back of a postcard with one of those pictures of earth from space....

I'm sorry, Holli. I'm so fucking sorry. 
I wish you were here.


she used to remind me that i cursed since i was five, so she'd know this letter was from me.



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