So there was a woman. By the time I met her, she was dying. I guess she always was, if you want to look at it like that. But she was seriously dying when I met her. We didn't have nearly long enough together. But it's like that, no?

She had been young once. In pictures, she is laughing. Always. A smile in her eyes- the ones that look like mine. She was rounded and healthy. When I knew her she was worn out. She had a broken and hurt ankle. She limped and wore a brace. She was very heavy. She looked like she had been pressed between heavy books- spread out and flattened somehow. She looked tired and in pain. And then she died.

When she laughed, the world was a good place to be. She loved me. I loved her back. When she died everything changed. Everything. And it never was quite right again. It took me years to understand the role she played, and what died with her. And that's what I get to carry around with me.

What I would like to hear from her is a story. All about who she really was. The context that I missed because I was too young to know or care. I would love to know what her favorite color was. I would love to know if she really liked diamonds, or if that was someone else's thing. I would love to know what she would have said about many things. She has assumed mythic proportions in my mind, because of the unanswered questions. I can fill her into a fantasy mythic uber-mother role. Which no doubt does a great disservice to her as a person. But I just don't know the person. Never really did. Never really could. She died.