One year ago today, I last saw my mom alive.  She was in hospice care, in the final stages of liver disease brought on by prescription medication.  It was a sad, sad time.  She was suffering.  My dad was suffering.  I guess we were all suffering.

In the afternoon of March 15, 2011, I leaned in close to my mom and said, close to her ear, “I love you , Mama.  I am praying for you.”  She whispered hoarsely, “I am praying for you, too.”  That’s the last thing she said to me.

In the year since, I have missed her enormously.  And I have often thought of her last words to me.

In the nearly ten years we lived in Virginia, my mom came to love pink dogwood.  As fate would have it, there are two pink dogwood just behind the building in which I work.  So, Mama, this is for you —

I miss you.