Christmas Eve

Dear Ellen
It's Christmas Eve. A year ago, a lifetime ago, I wrote on this same evening about your decline, about your slipping away from us. Can it really be a year ago? I didn't think I could live ten minutes without you and yet here I am, still learning to deal with the loss, but learning so much in the process. I've cried an entire river of tears, but I've found a strength I never knew I had.

I've thought over and over again "why". There's no answer to the question and there never will be. Or at least, not in this lifetime. All I could ever do was accept and move forward one inch at a time. I listened to what I thought was your voice, loud and clear, reminding me to pick myself up, stop feeling sorry for myself and get busy. Very busy. Somehow, I thought anything less than giving my best effort would be a disappointment to both of us.

I think there was something you were to learn here on this earth, there was a reason you were taken from us so young. A lesson I will never comprehend because it was yours alone. Is it my lesson to accept loss? To learn from it? Is this your final gift to me, to teach me I'm stronger than I thought? That I can take something so painful and use it to make me a better person? Is it what we choose to do with loss that defines us, shapes us, allows us to move forward?

I believe there was a reason we were placed in each others lives. I can't comprehend the reason, but I know we cared for each other and I do believe something good must come from losing you. I think I've spent the better part of the year trying to understand this.

A year. A year to learn so much.

Merry Christmas Ellen.
love
cathy