Muck

The summer has been a difficult one from the get-go.  A good one, but difficult for lots of reasons I'm still working through, still choking on.  And today.  Today is one of countless days that I wish I had a mom.  I would call her up, ask about the farm, chat about dinner menus, and share this horrible day with her perhaps as I cry a little about it, wanting her nonchalant laughter to pour over me like salve, a soothing encouragement, compassion from a mother to her daughter regarding this bond we share, this thing called motherhood.  I would ask her many, many questions.   So I slip back into the recesses of my imagination and pick up the phone.  I dial her number, listen to rings, and pauses between rings, and hear myself breathing on the receiver.  And then it's her voice.  Her warm and so familiar voice that is trekked into my most primitive memories.  No stand-in or surrogate will work today.  Some days I'm a mom.  Today I'm a daughter needing one.  Today, like countless others over nearly five years, I just miss my mommy.