This afternoon there was a commercial on television for one of those charities that fosters children in the third world (I don't think we're allowed to say third world anymore) and the song playing was the same song J chose for her mother's funeral, chose it because her mother loved it, probably chose it without really knowing what the lyrics meant, what her mother was saying when she sang along.  I can see her in the kitchen washing dishes with her outdated ghetto blaster blaring on the counter, horrible plastic pig decorations speckled with spilled coffee.

And although it's been nearly three years since Colleen died I am suddenly stunned by how much it still hurts, even though I keep making peace with it over and over again in different ways.  Through my dreams and through my memories, letting go of her in bits and pieces all the time.  I started doing that while she was still alive, and shouldn't I, by now, be done letting her go.  But the way I react to that song tells me it is not over with; god, I miss her so much.



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