To my Mother in Heaven: Thank you. Thank you for everything you have done for me. It has been such a long time since you have been here with me, to tell me that everything is going to be okay. I will miss all of our traditions we had every year, I will miss all of our inside jokes, and I will miss all of the good times we had. Losing my best friend, my Mom, my soul sister, my partner in crime, has been so devastating. There are always good days where I can't help but think of you and smile. Then there are the bad days where I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. There are days where I will think of you and begin to cry. You went through the same thing I did at my age, and you would have understood completely: What it is like to lose someone you are so close to. You always understood the struggle of trying to find someone who genuinely understands what you are going through.

After I lost you, the only way I could manage having those awful conversations with people, would be saying that you were in a better place now. You were, after battling cancer four times, undergoing a stem cell transplant, and numerous surgeries. But your place should have been here, watching your children graduate high school, and college, dancing at their weddings, celebrating birthdays, holding your grandchildren. But you were robbed of those opportunities. You won't be there physically. I won't hear every sarcastic comment you make, followed by our laughter. I won't wake up to a hug and a kiss on my birthday every year. I won't have you telling me everything will be okay even though I may be stressed with this semester. To have every single person you were ever acquainted with, tell me that I look exactly like you is both a blessing and a curse.

It is a blessing because I constantly remind everyone of you. Yet it is still a curse because I am constantly reminded of you every time I look in the mirror, and I realize that you're not here. It didn't hit me that you were really gone until the day of your funeral. I finally realized that this wasn't a bad dream but reality instead. To go into our church in our hometown, to be surrounded by all of our friends and family, made me mourn your loss even more. I used to wish you were here. You would be spending time with us. I would have one less Winnie The Pooh tattoo. There would be one less date to dread every year. Then I realized how sick you were. How weak you were. How it was only a matter of time before the cancer finally killed you.

The one thing that destroys me every day is knowing that I never got the chance to even say goodbye to you one last time. I didn't get the chance to tell you how much I loved you, or how much you meant to me. I hope you know that there is never a day that goes by where I don't think of you. You are constantly missed by everyone. To my mother in heaven, I love you. I cannot thank you enough for everything you have done for me.