Dear Ave,

I miss you so much. I wish you didn’t die. That you’re still here with me.

I returned to work on Thursday and felt quite dizzy, I think it’s my body adjusting back to work again. Or it could be the amount of blood pressure pills I am on.

I was walking home from my second day of work when I remembered you’re gone. And I still can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real when a mom dies. Its as if the world expects them to live on forever. That’s exactly how I felt about you.

As I start to live my life without you, letting my old world come back to me again, I can feel your loss more and more. And I know time will not make it better. Time will make it more painful as it becomes more and more obvious that you’re not coming back.

And I have worse moments now, when I suddenly just feel my mood turn sour, or I just feel suddenly tired, and sometimes I’m kind to myself and remember that it’s because of everything that’s happened. But sometimes I just carry on the day like that, not even wondering why I’m so tired, moody, and irate, and then I’ll just sleep it off, because there’s nothing else I can do.

As I prepare for my wedding ceremony in May without you, I ask myself why I am getting married. At this time I am not even thinking much about my love story with Tom. I am just thinking how best to honour you and Papa on my wedding. It’s as if Tom is just in the background, part of this tapestry between you and me.

Life goes on, and I have read and watched some stuff since I’ve come back to the UK. I’ve continued to watch Borgen, which is a Danish political drama that I really really love, I’ve read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, I’ve re-watched Taylor Swift’s eras tour loads of times, watched a few Taskmaster with Tom, watched Fisk and Top Boy and other stuff that I haven’t finished, read Loss by Donna Ashworth, and now reading Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman. Listened to music, podcasts, wrote, cooked, prepared lunch (tuna filling is currently my go to lunch- canned tuna, kewpie mayonnaise, red onion, pepper and a dash of lemon and some slices of cucumber- very easy to make and filling and I personally love it), slept, dreamt, chatted to my friends, tried on my wedding dress, bought Tom’s suit, ordered some wedding favours, sent out invites, thought of my sisters and felt the isolation, etc etc

I feel so unergetic right now, writing this. I want to hole up in my room and cry. But today is a nice day, Sunday. The sun’s out, and Tom and I are going to Asda to get some groceries. Then might walk down the seafront which is surely going to be beautiful.

Tomorrow I am heading back to work. Life goes on. Without you. But there’s a crack. And there’s always the feeling of leaping into the abyss, at the back of everyday.

Love,

Hershey