in january, i took a road trip to lehigh, pennsylvania with lisa baldwin and her son, eric. we were going to the university for a basketball game and a ceremony in honor of her brothers, rick and chris. we spent the weekend at her mother, jan's house. jan is a licensed therapist. when we pulled into the driveway and she came out to greet us, she just opened her arms to me and hugged me tightly while i cried on her shoulder.

we stayed up and talked until 4am for two nights in a row.

and she didn't speak to me as a therapist, she spoke to me as a woman who had lost her own mother too soon.

one of the things she told me about was the year of "firsts." "this is the first valentine's day without my mother," "this is the first time i did something great without my mother," etc.

and i while i certainly had felt that to a degree already, i was truly lucky. because my first day without mummy in my life was my first day with missy in my life. and my first mother's day without mummy was missy's first mother's day.

our family, mummy's family, had a love for her that was so huge that there are parts of me that think we could have all spontaneously combusted when she died. and when i feel like i am losing my faith, i am reminded by the very fact of missy that there is truly a loving and benevolent god.

the things that are catching me off guard now are not the times that we shared that i now face alone...but the things that did not exist when she was here.

i heard a song on the radio today that she never heard. and i know she would have loved it.

on saturday, magee and i video conferenced maura, buzzy, liam, seamus and missy. magee and i were at my house and maura and crew were at mummy's and we talked to each other and saw each other from computer to computer. (beastley and fang peacefully co-existed for the first time.)

mummy would have loved that.

i was prepared for the "we used to share this" moments but not for the "we'll never share this" moments.

and still...there is so much to share with missy...