Dear Mom,

Please don’t be upset. Please don’t be jealous that I am having brunch with my mother-in-law today.

Women remain competitive still, don’t we? Into our fourth decade, fifth, or yes, even your seventh.

We haven’t learned – still we bristle, gossip, snipe.

At how unfair it all is. That some get more. Some stay beautiful, some stay well.

Some linger on, without memory, mobility, joy.

And some, like you, are taken earlier, for no reason.

The pretty ones, the smart ones, the ones who work hardest and deserve it all, don’t always win. Haven’t we learned that yet?

You are gone, and you are loved, grieved, remembered, I promise.

But my mother-in-law is the one who lingers. And if she could look in my eyes, if she could finish all the broken sentences she starts,

she might say she is not the luckier one. She might say you are.

Happy Mother’s Day.  

Love,

Your daughter