Good Bye

It still seems so hard for me to believe.
It's been almost a decade and an half,
a fortnight, only in years, rather than days.
Since I last heard your laugh,
last saw your smile.
Sharp humor, and a sharper tongue.
A heart of gold in a steel package.
My idol, who I so desperately wanted to please,
and so unerringly seemed to fail.
The adventurous one, the brash woman.
You never seemed to know fear,
you hid your sorrows well.
I only ever witnessed your joy,
your anger and your disappointment.
I didn't get to see you that one last time.
I never got to say goodbye, or that I loved you.
There were merely pictures and a cold urn.
Between your departure,
and my youngest's arrival,
one of the worst weeks of my life
collided with one of the best weeks.
An instant recipe for a bi-polar milkshake.
A wreck, distraught because you were gone,
and yet elated that she was alive and healthy.
Up was down,
and down was sideways...
My thoughts and feelings,
so twisted, so torn.
Ready for the trash.
And I wanted so much to throw it all away...
so many times since then.
And each time...
I stop, and think,
of a strong willed woman,
who always seemed to know,
somehow, from miles away...
What I was thinking,
what I was feeling,
what I was up to...
And stopped me, each time,
merely with a phone call.
What I would give right now,
for one of your phone calls,
for some of your advice.
Just to hear the laugh,
or see the smile,
both slowly fading,
eroding in my broken memory.
To be able to finally say...
Thank you.
I miss you.
I love you.
Good bye.