Home again in the same year. I’m not sure why, really. I tell everyone it’s to be with family. First time spending Christmas without Mom. Truth is I just want to be close to where she used to be. This time the trip is not for her or for family. It’s for me.

I just need to feel her presence somehow. Not that she doesn’t pervade my thoughts everyday. I miss her so much. I wish I had recorded her as my mother. Not her as Miss Tapia, the television character. Although she had embraced that role, when she let the bun down, she was just my mother. Mythic in her own way, but also quite vulnerable and given to fits of fierce frustrations.

Maybe I came home to feel her absence, too. I came home to not be with her. To not sleep beside her, listening to her every breathe. To not watch her put on make up before going to work. To not hear her distinctive voice calling my name (after two or so incorrect references, usually my other siblings’ names), a voice that had grown sweeter over the years. To not feel her hug, her kiss, her caress that had turned more generous, an effluence of affection, which she withheld before like coveted holiday confection. To not watch her give orders about how she wanted things done, especially the Christmas tree and the lights and the watering of the garden in the late afternoon to keep the moisture in the ground through the night.

To not be with her, period.

It was easy to pretend she’s only waiting for me to come back home like she always did and always sweetly urged me to do, arms open, smiling… but she won’t be.

Not this time.

#losingmom #anaknitapia