Dear Mom

In the past 30 years there have been such major moments of disconnect between us. Not really rememberring being able to relate to you or feeling close to you in my youth and then early 20's. Not understanding how you could possibly know me in such a short 18 month window to my life. That is until 5 years ago. Five years ago when they said "You are having, you are having a girl!" The connect began. The connect would last for the next 9 months and then again and so intensely for the next 18 months. And then again the connect, and then one more time the connect.
Ruby just woke unexpectadly, mostly she is a wonderful sleeper. She cried out and I went to get her. I held her in my arms and kissed her forhead, felt her sweet baby breath and listened to the suck of that sweet paci. She still wasn't sleepy so I laid with her in my bed, cuddled so close. She in only a diaper, feeling her sweet soft skin. Oh the smell is straight from heaven, the sound like no other. I couldn't help but cry out to you. It was another one of our moments together, our connect.
We have had them often in the past five years. From the time I found out I was carrying a girl until the day my baby girl passed 18 months. What a short time it is. What a precious time it is. A time that means more to me than any other time in my life.
Moments, connects, lots of them.
Tonight, oh mom, tonight you were right there with me. I mean there are obvious connects; milestones, first smiles and cooing, first baths, walking, kisses, undescribable loves that I have stopped right smack in the moment of and thought, "I know you mom..I know you right now!" I know exactly what you were thinking at that moment when you were with me. When you held me in our window, I knew momma. I knew you more deeply than ever before.
Tonight, oh tonight momma, it was different than most! I couldn't shake it. I didn't want to shake it. Ruby just wanted me to hold her close, to cuddle her, and to smell her. And you were right there, right there in her smell, in her sounds, in her feel. As I felt so close to you, I cried to you. This time, I felt it momma, our connect.
I have been gifted this 18 month window, that same window three times over. But soon Ruby will close our window. Our connect will be gone?
Did you ever even hear my voice? You didn't see my second birthday, you didn't fix my hair or hold my hand or send me to kindergarten. You didn't talk to me about boys, or see me get married. How will we connect, mom? I don't want this to end. I don't want our time to go. It will go! She will turn 18 months soon and YOU will go, she will turn 19 months and then 20 months and then she will be 5 year old and then 10 and you will be gone. We didn't have those windows, we didn't have that connect. Where will the connect be?
I know, I know, I remember what "they" say, "what you do not know will not hurt you". Well then, now I know damnit. Now I know that smell, that tender touch, that love that you had for me. Now I know what that soft cuddle in the middle of the night was between us in that small little window. Now I know and now it is coming to an end, going to be gone. I know that sweet kiss on the forehead, I can feel that when I kiss her, you/me, her, her/me/you. It is hard to articulate. It is not describable, but somehow there has been a connect. A gift I have been graced with three times over. My time is up, the disconnect will ensue. I know you won't come to me in a dream, not in a prayer, not in life. Mom, you have come to me in my baby girls and what will happen when that is gone. When the window is soon to close.