It’s my mom’s birthday today. It’s amazing that I remember it so well now that she is dead. While alive, I sometimes got it wrong by a day or two. But now it’s seared into my consciousness.

Today I think of all the things she loved. I laugh at her old pranks. I remember her scent. I remember how she’d like to go on the swings. She was a kid at heart who gave me everything she could so that I could succeed. Gone too soon. I feared it but didn’t see it coming. I was sucker-punched. Till this day I don’t understand how she could be gone. Her life was not easy. That’s an understatement. Her death was an outrage. My grief everlasting.

I’m not ashamed to say that I still want my mommy.

Happy birthday, mom. I live to make you proud.