i was driving up to sonoma yesterday for tolan's second birthday party. the weather was gorgeous and the drive to sonoma is beautiful.

my mind was stuck in the drama from work. i didn't handle it nearly as well as i could have...but i am not doing anything nearly as well as i could nowadays. it is hard — being kicked when you are down.

it is even harder when you don't have mummy to call.

so i was talking to her inside my head and we decided that i needed to just put it all behind me. but i kept going back to it, so we decided that if i would just sing along to the cd player as loudly as i could, i'd probably be fine. so that's what i did.

she liked it when i sang along to the radio. and not because i have a good singing voice. i don't. i think that's why she liked it. because when i was sitting in the car singing out loud, not caring what i sounded like, she knew i felt safe and happy.

so i sang. i sang through a few songs and i started to feel much better. then, john hiatt's "georgia rae" came on. and it happened.

i remembered her before the sickness. and not the logical, in my brain kind of memory...because i can intellectually remember things that happened...this was a visceral memory. it was the first, in-my-soul memory i've had of healthy mummy since she got sick.

and i just cried buckets. so hard that i thought i might need to turn around and go home. (we had a little conversation about that in my head, too. about grace. and that i should turn around and go home if i couldn't pull it together, because the day was all about tolan.)

it was both a sad and happy cry. sad because i miss her so much, i can feel it in my gut. i ache. happy because i was beginning to wonder if i'd ever be able to remember her and any of the good times we shared. and this memory came back. out of the blue. and maybe more will, too.

we shared so many good times. and they were simple times, small, lovely moments, like the one that came back to me when i was driving.

i finally saw her in my head. and not the "breathess, dying - her" or the "dead, with an overstuffed bra and bad make-up - her" but the living her.

so i am adding it to the memories that i can call up in my soul...her hanging onto my toes when i had my feet up on her hospital bed while we watched "ugly betty"...the way she smiled on december 23rd when liam came in and wrapped his arms around her neck and hugged her soooo tight...the way she felt when i curled up in bed behind her when we were watching the grinch...the times when i thought she was asleep and she reached up and held my hand...all of these are so sweet...and they mean the world to me...but in all of these moments she was dying.

now i have this:
i saw her to my left as we were driving up muncaster mill road in her white convertible with the top down. and she was wearing a white cotton hat, like gilligan used to wear. she had these giant plastic glasses over her prescription eyeglasses and she was wearing a polo shirt. i put on another gilligan hat that she had in the car, and i picked up another pair of awful giant plastic glasses and put them on. i don't remember where we were going, but i remember that we were singing "georgia rae" and we were happy and we loved each other so much and we were just happy to be together.