Spring is Seeping in All Over

It must be Spring because it's persistently raining outside, the windows are wet with raindrops, they hit the metal ladder outside and the cat will only stay out for short periods of time. I can hear the chickens clucking two houses down, proving that chickens are much more resilient than cats.

I'm planning the trip down to Modesto to have the memorial for my mom, to settle her into her final resting place. My head is full of lists of things to do, preparations, plans, arrangements, responsibilities.

Then I feel this loneliness that has seeped into my soul since mom passed, the feeling of being an orphan, and missing the love of two parents who surely did their best, and gave me everything two loving parents could. Like the persistent rain outside, I am longing for the chapter to be done, complete, my responsibility to be finished, so that I can come back home, move on to other things, feel the sun on my face, and know that I did all I could and did it right, with care and attention that only a daughter can do. 

A mother and a daughter. I have come to realize that as I have lost my mother, I am also giving up my daughter, and the distances of both leave me with a feeling of loss that is both terribly painful but emancipating as well. Hurting and freeing. Questioning my abilities, and knowing I've done my best. It's two vines intertwined; they grow over each other, sometimes they are the same thing; other times they are so far apart, and ultimately they are each their own, but they each take so much of my energy, and time and spirit that I am left unable to speak, to sleep or to breath.