Our last first...

I find it hard to believe that my mother has been gone for a year.  I have spent many nights missing her and thinking about how much she would have wanted to be here.  We have had a year's worth of firsts without her.  Tonight there are no more firsts.  I have cooked a Thanksgiving meal without her, celebrated Christmas without her, spent my birthday without her, spent a summer by the pool without her, held her new grand-daughter without her.  I wonder how this can be possible.  I wish things could be different.  I still don't understand how this can be the way we are.  Things are so different.  I miss her so much.