It has been two short years since you and Justin tied the knot.
It is surreal for me – for a couple of reasons.
First – you are, and always will be, my baby girl. Acknowledging then that you are all grown up is not something I easily do.
Second – my memories of this day two years ago are very different than yours. I wasn’t able to join in your celebration with you. Rather, I was trying to distract Ma from the pain of not being present – a pain I am not so sure she ever let go of. Her body would not allow her to attend and her mind kept her from healing from that.
I believe that her inability to be physically present, on a day that she herself had been looking forward to, was a turning point for her recovery. It was at that point, that I believe, she realized that her life was slowly being consumed by the dis-ease of her physical body. She had fought for so long but now it was clear that even she was not strong enough.
I never heard her speak of your day except for once – when she owned that that hardest part of it all was knowing that Marlene was able to attend.
I hope you know how proud of you she was. I also hope you can see through her life how anger and resentment can eat away at the very fiber of your soul. If I could wish for you anything at all, it would be the ability to forgive even when you can’t forget.