One Year

It's hard to believe it's been an entire year.

It seems like only yesterday we coloured your hair pink, but in comparison it feels like it has been forever since I felt one of your hugs.  So much has happened in the year since you died, so many times I wanted to call you and tell you about my day.  It is an impulse that will always be there; you were always the first person I told about everything.

I still tell you, I just don't need a phone to do it.

I miss you, but you are always with me.  I channel you more and more as each day goes by--when I laugh, it is your laughter I hear; when I chat up the person next to me in line at the grocery store, it is you who is being friendly to a stranger; when one of my customers flirts with me on the phone it is you they are flirting with.

There have been some dark days this past year--it's been a tough road for this family--but we have made it through.  I know you would have been proud of me, of all of us.  We've lost so much, but gained a stronger bond with each other.  I know you'd want to be there to comfort us, but we find strength somehow just in the knowing.

Is it strange I still want to be a better person for you?  A better daughter, sister, niece, partner, friend.  I still strive to make you proud of me, even though you're no longer here to see my efforts.  I want to be that person you always believed I could be.

It's a work in progress.

Maybe it always will be.