Sorting through the past

My sister Tara and her husband Mike drove up to my mother's house this past weekend to sort through my mom's personal stuff. It's been four months since my mom died, but it felt like it happened just last week knowing my sister was in my mother's house. Some small part of my brain still believed my mom was there, in that house, and Tara arriving there to report the house was empty was just further proof that my mom is really, truly gone. As weird as that may sound, my sister Sheila was going through the exact same thing. Like, there had been some huge mistake and my mother was still alive, still in her beloved little condo watching Perry Mason re-runs with her giant cat on her lap.

My mom kept everything. Well, everything that pertained to my sisters and me. Every drawing we made in school. Every story I wrote as a child. Our baby clothes. Tara sorted things into boxes to take back to Sheila and me, and some things went into a group box that the three of us will sort through together later.

I always knew my mother loved me. I never once doubted that. But it's only now that she's gone that I realize no one will ever love me like that again.