One Year (a mother’s letter)

By Deborah Cross Werner

Dear Jamie,

It has been one year since you left this world and us. Not a moment goes by that I don’t think about you, feel overwhelming loss and wish desperately things could’ve been different.

We have survived so many firsts since you passed away: your 28th birthday, our birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and all of the holidays. As hours turn to days then to months and now a year, I can still hear your laughter, feel your energy as you enter a room, smell your cooking in the kitchen, see you asleep on the couch, watch you planning football plays for your players and remember that excitement you had when you had one of your big ideas – crazy or not. I still hear you talking about your students and realize how sad it is that those children, who have not always been lucky in life, have lost you too.

I miss your ability to entertain a crowd with good drinks, good food and conversation that was never boring. I miss your unbelievable bartending stories; they made us all laugh, embellished or not. I can still see your red car drive into our driveway with your “wolf” Jak. Without a doubt, as you enter the kitchen, you would take your sneakers off and leave them in the middle of the room for me to trip over. What I would give to fall over your sneakers again. Your clothes are still hanging in the closet, your bed is still made, your hairbrush is in your bathroom and the memorial we have built for you remains untouched. Your books are unread in your bookshelf and I change your super-hero calendar each and every month. Your number remains on my phone and I actually call it every once in a while.

Every day I go into your room to make myself believe that you are really gone. I miss you Jamie and I wish I had more time with you, even if it was just an hour.

Love,
Mom