Since my mom passed four years ago, we have a family tradition of getting ice cream on this day, her birthday. We all take selfies and text them to each other. It’s a wonderful tradition and my mom would love it.

I’ve been treating my word processor like a rattlesnake tonight, cautiously approaching to write, then hurriedly stepping back. I’ve sought distractions from all directions. I watched the end of the Boston/76ers game. I watched the new woodworking video from April Wilkerson. I watched an episode of Ghost Adventures (in hindsight, in my little house in the woods, that might not have been the best idea…). I watched an inning of the Giant’s game.

I know I’m going to cry writing this.

…Okay, let’s do this.

Happy birthday, mom! I miss you so much.

There’s a number of reasons I have trouble writing about my mom. First and foremost of which is I have a lot of regrets. I regret that I didn’t visit her more. I regret that I didn’t take her up on visiting for what would be her last Thanksgiving. I regret not calling more. None of us know how much time we have left, but I guess I never thought mom would be… gone.

Even when we didn’t talk I knew she was there. My mom was such an important figure in my life. She got me. If you’re reading this you have probably known me for a while, and so you know that I’m not normal – in the best sense, I would maintain! But my mom got that. Case in point: in high school, a friend’s dad gave me his old moped. I loved it because it was quirky and weird. It had a front rack I could bungee my Little Mermaid lunchbox to. I affixed a milk crate to the back and would ride the thing to school in my Birkenstocks. Where does my mom come in here? She sewed me a tiger-striped seat cover.

Another story: for my birthday one year my aunt Jean bought me this awesome 6-foot tall blow-up Godzilla. I love that thing, but it developed a leak and I relegated it to my closet. Fast forward a few years and my buddies and I went to see Jurassic Park on opening night. Naturally I got home late, and the lights by the side door were off. No big deal. I opened the door and Godzilla, all six feet of him lurched at me from the open door. I’m not ashamed to say I screamed like a little girl. My mom hit the lights as she laughed hysterically. “I’m so glad you finally came home,” she said. “Do you know how many times I had to pump that thing up?!” This was a trend: a few years later I returned from seeing Blair Witch Project to find stick figures like in the movie menacingly decorating my room.

Mom came to visit Anna and I when we were living in Utah. She did her research and decided we had to hit up the enormous local corn maze. The three of us ventured in and got hopelessly lost almost immediately. We never found the exit – we ended up going out the way we came in. “You can’t go out this way!” one of the employees said. “We just did!” Mom replied as we hurried to the car. That same trip she and I drove out to Bear Lake (on the way we might have – at her urging – ventured up a few 4×4 trails…) and had their incredible raspberry milkshakes.

My ice cream picture above came from here in town. They encourage you to sample the different unique flavors, and as soon as I tried the blueberry limoncello, the tart blueberry reminded me just a little of that raspberry milkshake for just a moment…

…These moments…

She was always supportive of my writing. Always. She read all my clips from my high school paper and insisted I bring her home City on a Hill Press from UCSC when I started writing there. And then after college… I pretty much stopped writing for a long time. No one likes to think that they might not have lived up to their parents’ expectations, but I’m genuinely saddened to think of everything she’ll never read. I thought of that when I started this blog and, in a lot of ways, it’s dedicated to her. She might not get the opportunity to read it, but that’s not the point. What’s important is that I am writing again, and that’s enough.

The fall before she passed, she and her sister, my aunt Jean, went on my mom’s dream Greek cruise. She compiled the pictures of the trip into a huge album. Here’s another regret: I only got a few minutes to flip through it with her that February day when I came up to be with my family as my mom went in for exploratory surgery. Before we took her to the hospital I asked if we could look at it later. She agreed, but then a few hours later we got the terrible news, and nineteen days later, she was gone…

I promised myself I wouldn’t write about that time today. But I have a reason for this one – a few months before that she sent me the journal she kept throughout the trip about the excursions and the locations they visited and some of the colorful characters they me along the way. I re-read the journal recently, and heard her voice in my head again, so clear. I was surprised I didn’t cry – but then why would I? It was clear she was having the time of her life!

These moments.

I know she’s still around. There are moments I feel her distinctly. I know she’s with me when I’m on the motorcycle. I feel her when I’m off adventuring. She was in a dream recently – we were having a big family party and she was making a feast of our favorites, but was concerned there wasn’t enough food. I offered to make my oven fajitas and she agreed. That’s a dish I made only after she passed. At the risk of reading too much into a dream, I think it suggested that not only is she still around, but she’s aware of the things I make – be they oven fajitas or, well, this blog.

Happy birthday, mom! You are loved, you are remembered, and you are missed. Thank you for everything! See you in my dreams!