My mother died 13 years ago this night.
In truth, we do not know if it was April 11 or April 12 that she died.
She died in the night, alone, suddenly.
No one knows when, exactly.
I was away at college, and got a call the next morning. 
So, I observe two days of mourning and celebrating.
My grandmother called me today to remind me
To light a Yahrtzeit candle.
I couldn’t admit I didn’t have one.
Where do you find a Yahrtzeit candle on a Saturday?
So after I am done typing this post,
I will light a candle I bought in Jerusalem many years ago.
Today I spent the morning with three women
Who were old enough to be my mother.
Truth be told, it pissed me off.  
Why did they get to live
Live into their fifties
To bitch about menopause and sagging bodies
Muse about reassessing their lives,
And why did my mother have to die?
13 years later and I still ask that question.
Time, apparently, heals most, but
(contrary to popular opinion)
Not all wounds.
Tears stream down my face as I write this.
Grief and rage are a potent combination.
My mother was an artist and a poet.
I wish you could have known her and her words.
She was beautiful, and bright and full of promise.
Cut short.
Mother, interrupted, at age 46.
13 years older than I am now.
I hope I can be half the person she was. 
I wish she could have met my son.
I’m sad that he will never know a maternal grandma.
Fuck being an orphan.
Damn, I miss her.
She was the only person in my life
Ever to love me unconditionally–
Love without limits.
I count that as the greatest blessing
A human being can have.
To have known real, authentic love.
And can only hope to give the same gift
To my child.
Mother loss - this grief lasts a lifetime
She is a gossamer canopy
Hanging over all that I am
All that I do.
Yes I would like to think she is an angel
Though I have no thoughts
On life after death
Choosing to believe that
Heaven and hell are here and now.
No question that she lives on in
My flesh and the flesh of my son.