I survived Mother's Day w/o my Mom for the first time in 43 yrs. I miss her so much...

Dear Mom, Just read another member's blog and thought, what the heck, I might as well post it here? She lost her Mom last year as well. I don't know how I made it thru Mother's Day without you. I still miss you so much. Even now I find myself wanting to reach for the phone and call you, even just to chat and say hi. You were my mother, my mentor, my best friend, my confidant,and a Claymate "by proxy", and now you're gone. It's been ten months but at times, it feels like forever. While other times like right now, I sit and cry, wishing to hear your voice, or smell your perfume you've worn for a gazillion years. But you're gone, and my heart and mind just somehow cannot reconcile the fact that I will never see you again.
How do we all do it? I mean, dealing with the loss of a parent we are close to? Oh, I know, we take it each day at a time, right? Sometimes a moment at a time. I wouldn't want to be my step father. He's got to live in the same house. Maybe for him it is a comfort. For me, I feel like it would be torture.

I go to bed at night and I think to myself as I lie there in the dark, what it must have felt for you to die? Did you know I wasn't right there? Did you know I was on my way to see you at that moment? Did you know I got the news right at the airport, waiting to get to you in time to say goodbye, and didn't? Sure, I'd seen you a week prior, but I feel like I let you down. I wasn't there when you needed me. You didn't see me when you did open your eyes for a moment. You saw your brother, my uncle, but what did it mean to you? He said you cried when you opened your eyes and saw him. That tells me everything I need to know. How life goes on, I'll never understand. It hurts to breathe sometimes. But, I know go on I must. That's what you would want me to do, and I am. Never forget that I love you and I miss you, and I love your more than there are grains of sand in California. Your Loving Daughter, Shari Sanchez