Dear Mama,

It has been two months since your spirit left this earth, and today is your 37th anniversary.  I know it isn't MY anniversary, but I just wanted to say how much this day means to me.

Thank you for marrying Dad, and for sticking with him, even those first few years, when things looked like they might not go how you thought they would.  He turned out to be a wonderful man, huh?  He loves you more than anything in this world and would protect you from anything, and took the best care of you all those years you were sick.  Then he gave up his life completely to wait on you hand and foot there at the end.  You made a great choice, Mom.

The two of you somehow managed to be a cohesive unit, even though you came from completely different family styles, backgrounds, religious views, and, for a while, values.  You gave me the best gift a parent can give a child:  a stable, loving home environment with two people completely committed to their marriage and family.  You provided me with a foundation I could grow within and guidance when I needed it.

Thank you, Mom, for marrying Dad, and for being committed to being his wife and the mother of his children every day.  Even though you are gone, we are all still reaping the benefits of that choice.  I love you, Mom.  Happy Anniversary.

Dear Mama,

You prompted me today through a random thought to check on Margo, your good friend and "cancer buddy," and so I did. 

I saw that you and Margo were reunited today. 

I am so depressed for yet another family's loss of their sweet matriarch.  Yet I know that just like you, Margo was an amazing person so full of love for others and willing to serve in any manner Heavenly Father asked of her, I have no doubts that she is happily reunited with her Heavenly Father. 

She was my early morning seminary teacher when I was a senior in high school.  We all know I was not easy to love at that time, but Margo wrote me a sweet and encouraging note about where I could find happiness.  She reached out to me at a time when I wasn't open to the church or many authority figures and just let me know I was loved and I was important.  I still have that note and I smile every time I come across it in my scriptures.

Then, less than ten years later, her family hosted a Christmas party for the singles branch of the Tulsa Oklahome East Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It was that night at Margo's home that I met my future eternal soulmate.

And of course, how could I forget the special friendship you two had?  I was always touched when you talked of Margo sitting with you during your chemo treatments, and then when Margo was rediagnosed, how you gave her the cancer blanket that the church ladies gave to you to take to your treatments. 

A few weeks before you died, you told me that Margo had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, unrelated to the breast cancer she had beat a few years before.  You were in hospice care, and she would be joining you soon, and you said that you knew that Heavenly Father allowed you to stay just a little bit longer so that you could help prepare Margo for what she was about to go through.

I imagine she must have given you the biggest hug this morning.  I am happy that you and your friend are together again, but I admit I am a little jealous.  I wish I could have hugged you, too.  I miss you so much, Mom. 

Please let Margo know I will pray for her family tonight.

Dear Mama,

You raised me to be independent and have the ability to stand on my own, and I do, so why do I feel like I have to re-evaluate who I am and what my role is in our family now that you're gone?  Why do I feel like so much of who I am was part you? 

I was an adult before, of course, but now I feel like I am thrown to the wolves to figure out how to continue to grow and be a mom and a wife.  I still need you.  I still need your example and advice and support and comfort.  I guess I was a lot more dependent on you than I thought I was.

You raised us all in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but of your 3 children (and your spouse), I am the only one left in the family who is an active member.  When I am with Kate and Matthew, I feel like there are no pretenses with them anymore.  They are who they are; they don't hide it anymore.  They did before when they were around you, out of respect for you and the way you raised us.  But now I feel like instead of looking at me like a sibling, they look at me like some old-fashioned mom-figure because I represent the standards you raised us with.  They don't tell me things that are going on in their lives, just like they sheltered you.  They also have a new closeness to each other, which is great, but I feel a little left out.

Then I think maybe it is okay for me to feel left out.  I AM different, and I AM a mom and I DO represent those values, and I shouldn't feel self-conscious about it because not only are they what makes me ME, but they are my connection to YOU.

But as Jay points out, it is important to distinguish that I am NOT their mom.  They are adults (mostly), and don't need guidance and counsel from me.  They can make their own choices and I can still love them and be close to them without necessarily condoning those choices.  They know where I stand and if they don't want to tell me some things, maybe that is fine.  Maybe I don't want to know anyway.  Maybe that information would just upset me, like it did you.  So I am just going to keep working harder to be a better me, and let them figure out the best way to be better at being them and try my hardest not to judge them or give them unsolicited advice.

But oh, what do I know!?

Dear Mama,

Me, Jay and our family, Katie and her girls and Matthew went to San Antonio Monday and Tuesday.  We wanted Dad to come with us all, but he said he had just started getting back to work now that the dust has settled after your passing and that he needed to get some things done.  It was the first whole-family trip we have taken without you and Dad.  We really had a great time, but there were holes in our trip where you both should have been.

On our way to San Antonio, we stopped and toured the Natural Bridge Caverns.  Katie and Matthew thought they were kind of lame, but they reminded us all of the family trips we used to take growing up.  Jay and I really enjoyed it, and of course our boys did, too.  Jay had made up this whole scenario that we were in a bat cave (which we were) and that we were in search of Batman!  Then all the way through, we would point to the different formations and say, "Oh, look guys!  There's Batman's bed, and there is his bath."  It was a fun adventure for our outdoorsy family.

When we got to our hotel, we unloaded our stuff and the kiddos, and went directly to the indoor pool to swim.  We ate some pizza (Of course, Jay HAD to have pizza...) in the pool area, and when we were sick of swimming, we went back up to our rooms to get dressed and walk around the Riverwalk.

On our way to San Antonio, Dad had texted us, telling us that the last time he was in San Antonio was 37 years ago on your honeymoon.  That made me sad, but I could picture you and Dad as newlyweds, hand in hand, walking down the romantic riverwalk together.  I think that may have been part of the reason he didn't want to come.  I worry about how he will handle your 37-year anniversary later this month.  He really misses you, Mama.  I think he is still figuring out who he is without you.

We had gotten up to leave pretty early Monday morning, and the kids hadn't really napped much in the car, since we stopped around naptime and toured the caverns, so we had to try to keep them happy while we walked around.  We stopped at a riverside Mexican restaurant for some nachos and drinks and laughed when we were serenaded with "La Cucharacha."  It almost seemed like I could feel you there with us, laughing.  It reminded me a lot of the ski trip we all made to Taos a few years ago when Garit was a baby and we told the waiters it was Jay's birthday and they brought us out some fried ice cream.  Remember how we all laughed at the look on the waiter's face when he brought it out and Jay started to tell him it really wasn't his birthday?

The next morning, we all got up and Jay was able to "motivate" us all out the door for Sea World on schedule. 

Weeeeell, we are the Conrad family, so we were only 15 minutes behind.  We were all running on "Mollie" standard time, I guess.

Sidenote:  Remember last summer when we all stayed with Uncle Tom and Aunt DeeDee and you had changed Matthew's ACT test site so that he and Nash could take it together in Florida while we were all on vacation/there for Grandma Ann's memorial?  You had laid out all of then-16-year-old Matthew's stuff that he needed to take with him for the test, but an hour into the time he was supposed to be test-taking, he called my phone in a panic saying they wouldn't let him take the test because he had forgotten his ID, and he couldn't get ahold of you guys to come pick him up.  You were so frustrated with him that you had done everything for him beforehand and he STILL managed to forget something and couldn't take that dang test that you had jumped through hoops to arrange for him to take while we were there.

Back to our day of Sea World...

We got there, and I was in mom-mode, getting sunscreen on all my kids and passing it down to Kate, so she could do the same for her girls.  At some point, I guess Matthew asked me for the sunscreen, but he never did get it.  As we walked around Sea World, he decided that doing the Sea World experience with his two sisters and their 5 kids aged 8 months to 7 years wasn't all that much fun, so he began to split off from us for periods of times to go ride rides.  Once I went off with him for about a half hour and rode a ride, then Katie did next.  When Katie came back around 2pm, and met us in a show, Matthew didn't.  She said he was going to ride a few more rides and meet her in the Sesame Street Bay of Play.  The problem was they had not set up a time to meet, and Matthew had (imagine that) left his cell phone in my house before we left Monday morning. 

We looked and looked for him, dragging our poor, exhausted children all the way, spending a lot of time in the Sesame Street Bay of Play, but never found him.  Finally, it was time for the park to close, and we had seen and experienced just about all there was to see and do at Sea World.  So we got our children to the car, with drinks and snacks, resting in front of a DVD, and decided what to do about lost Matthew.

It was decided that I would go back and look for him.

I got back to the gate, and prevailed upon the guard to let me back in to look for my lost brother, and found him stumbling toward the entrance, arms burnt to a crisp, slightly dehydrated.  Splitting off from us also cut him off from sunscreen, food, and drinks.  Thankfully, he had his wallet and a little bit of cash so he was able to at least get sustenance when he really needed it.  As I walked him back to where we had parked, I could hear your smug "Matthew!  If I didn't do everything for you..." speech in my mind and I giggled a little to myself when, as we walked, he thoughtfully reflected, "Hmmm...this all could have been prevented if I had remembered my phone." 

Then later at dinner, he said, slightly joking, "Colleen, remember when I asked you for sunscreen this morning?  It would have been REALLY nice if I had gotten it."  Jay responded, "Yeah, it's totally you fault, Colleen."  The nerve!  Uh, yeah, this all could have been prevented if he had remembered his phone.  Or his own sunscreen.  Or had taken responsibility for himself and been persistent in asking me for mine. (After all, I do already have 3 children of my own, I didn't know I was responsible for a fourth!!)  Or had set up a time and place to meet Katie at Sesame Street.  Or just not split off from us in the first place. 

So Mother, you weren't here to help him think forward, and he got a second-degree burn, according to Jay.  And I could hear you laughing at him, shaking your head, thinking that he got what he deserved.  But I bet you he'll be a bit more responsible next time. 

A tad. 

I mean, we can't expect miracles here, but I'm guessing he will at least remember his cell phone.  ;)