Right Now

Dear my sweetheart, my gorgeous flower, my forever love,

Darling, I only have one request. I love you more than words can say. I'll love you till the moon dips its early descent and till the sun heaves itself back up again, rising from the depths of the husky purple mountains to the tippy-top of the fresh blue sky. I'll love you forever, really. My one request:

Please, just remember me.

You don't know who I am, but I'll always know you. You see, I've seen you... though not really. I've seen you through an X-ray, a screen, but I've felt each kick you've laid in my stomach. I've felt every pulsing heartbeat that coursed through your body. I know you, but you'll never know me.

Please, just remember me.

I'll never get to talk to you, to stroke your hair, to plant a kiss on your cheek, or say, "I love you." But I do. I do so much it aches to think I'll never get to grow up with you, and you'll never get to grow up with me. We'll forever be separated, kept apart by the shiny sheen of death as it beckons me to its clutches.

Please, just remember me.

There's so much I have to tell you, and so much I never will. I can't put everything in this letter. I've asked your father to give you this when you're thirteen, so perhaps you'll get to finally know a little bit about the mother who you'll never get to be with. I hope maybe, someday, we might see each other. Maybe somehow, somewhere, we'll finally get to meet. I'll get to see the baby I've housed for nine months, finally get to meet her, and you'll get to meet the mother who loves you so much. Perhaps it seems impossible that we'll ever get to laugh or talk to each other. After all, I'm dying. And you're just beginning to live your life. But you never know; the world can be a magical place.

Please, just remember me.

I'd like to hold you, to talk to you, to be with you, a being in this world, a feeling of open stillness, a way of life, a... a creature. For we are all creatures, drifting in this lonely, lonely world, navigating our way, exploring and discovering and building and creating. But we also destroy. Humans destroy. Everything. Everything must go and everything has its time to go. Humans kill things before their due dates, but Mother Nature is said to do that as well. Which is why I'll never get to meet you.

Please, just remember me.

I know you'll never get to know me. Your mother. But I hope perhaps you can love me as I love you. Because I do love you; really love you. I love you so much that the pain shoots through me whenever I think that we'll never get to be together. That we'll forever be strangers to each other. Family that never met. I know we'd love each other so much, but you don't know me. I know you, but barely. And we'll never get to know each other.

Please, just remember me.

Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to be dead. By the time you read this, I will be, but right now, as I write this, longing to see my baby daughter, I'm alive. When I'm dead though, will I see as I do now? Or will I collapse, a nothingness in the ether, a speck of dust in a cabinet of dirt, a hole in a cavern? Will I still be something? Or is nothing something? If it is then I'll always be something, because there are only two states of being: something and nothing. If I'm always something when I'm nothing, then I'm always something.

Please, just remember me.

Darling, you are thirteen years old now. I must tell you the truth and nothing but it; lies are often frowned down upon by most, especially people with a little spark in them, and I could tell from your kicks that you're a feisty one. The truth and only the truth: I'm dying. You must know it, sweetie, but the blow won't hit you as hard, because you already know that. Right now, for you, I'm dead, but right now, for me, I'm alive.

Please, just remember me.

It's intriguing, really. I'm writing as a pregnant woman, a woman who wishes she could stay alive long enough to just say one word, one word, to her baby. But you're reading as a teenage girl thirteen years into the future who knows nothing of her mother, who's been told her whole life that her mother is dead. Right now, I'm not. But soon I will be.

Please, just remember me.

I hardly know what to write anymore, but I can't waste a single moment. Every word that goes down is one more word my baby will read in memory of her mother. I have to keep going, to fit in all I can. Because this is my first, last, and only letter to you. The only reminder you'll ever have that you had a mother at all. The only way you'll ever get to know just how much she loves you. It's not past tense for you, either. I still love you so much. Always know that.

Please, just remember me.

I'm running out of time. I'm losing strength now. So much to say, not enough time to say it. You will always have me, even though I'll never have you. I'll be in your heart forever, if you only know where to look. And no matter what happens to this letter, I'll always be in your memory. I'm always here for you, even if you don't know it.

Please, just remember me.

You may not remember me. But I'll always remember you. You don't have to remember me; you've never met me, after all. I've never met you, either, but I still know you as if I have forever. The one thing you do have to remember, though:

I love you. Right now and forever.

Love,

Mom