It takes a village - Youth CVTC Speech

Being a parent changes us. It turns us into people who base our decisions on the welfare of others, people who take as much or more pride in the accomplishments of our children as we do in our own, people whose very existence is defined by our relationship to another.

Parenthood lifts us up to the greatest joys, giving us the ability to persevere through sleepless nights, find patience when we believe that there is none, and to live with teenagers.

It also makes us infinitely more vulnerable, as our world can also be shattered by our offspring. Their bad decisions become our own failures, their loss is the end of existence as we know it.

I have felt that vulnerability for years. First as the mother of an addict, and with increasing intensity with every relapse. And over the last 21 months I have felt that vulnerability as someone who lost part of what was most precious to her.

When my daughter died, I started counting life by days, and eventually by months. I’m not yet to the part where I think in terms of years – much like when we first have a child and we count each new joy by the hour, I count life by the emptiness that was left behind when my daughter died.

I want you to understand who we are. I have always been a bit of a wall flower. I would much rather watch events than be the center of attention. My daughter, Elannah Rose, was my polar opposite. She was ready to take center stage from the moment she was born. She ran head long into any adventure she could find.

Elannah Rose barreled through life without fear, she collected loved ones along the way and continuously impressed us with her ability to be confident and comfortable in any situation. She started out with such an extreme measure of confidence that it was hard to see beyond it into the troubled young lady she became. She was precious to us, and we were prepared to do anything to make her life successful, including uprooting her from our original home in northern California, to come to La Crescenta, and all it offered.

We picked La Crescenta not only for the proximity to my husband’s family, but also for the schools, and the somewhat small town atmosphere that seemed so appealing and just a bit surprising this close to the city – at least to me, since my hometown actually was one of those typical small towns where you can’t go to the grocery store without catching up with everyone you know, every neighbor is in your business, and as a kid when you stepped out of line, your parents knew before the dust settled.

The first few years here seemed like paradise, even though this neighborhood was probably always a touch out of our budget, we found a way to make it work because it was well worth it to have our kids grow up here.

When Elannah Rose got into middle school, we knew that she was struggling a bit with the more complex social structure and relationships, but there was never a sign that things were desperate for her. We were still sitting down to dinner together every evening, her dad still checked her homework every night, and we saw many of her friends on a regular basis. She still seemed to confide in us about all the right things, and we made sure that we had all of the important conversations with her, so that she could make wise choices about boys, drugs, school. In all of the areas that we were supposed to provide guidance, we made sure to.

By the time Elannah Rose got to high school, things seemed to settle down. She found her niche in the drama classes, she joined comedy sports, and her social circle grew. We thought that she was thriving, as a matter of fact, I regularly confided in my friends on how lucky I was that her teenage years were so easy.

Our idyllic life was shattered when, at sixteen years old, Elannah Rose confessed that she was using heroin, and had been using drugs of one kind of another for the past three years.

I can’t describe our horror. Elannah Rose had, in recent history, displayed complete shock and disgust over stories of drug use at school, being particularly disgusted when one of her friends was caught smoking pot. How could that girl be the same person who was now telling us that she wasn’t sure she could control her drug use anymore?

At this time, Elannah Rose was working part time and doing incredibly well at her job, she was also generally doing ok at school, and I can’t say that we ever noticed any specific decline. She was still highly involved in her extracurricular activities at school and was excelling in her dance classes. I kept wracking my brain… how had we missed this?

We missed a lot. In hindsight, I almost guarantee that if I was more alert to the risks, I would have seen the signs. Like any other parent of an addict, I can find a million ways to blame myself. But I also know this…

Elannah Rose was what is considered a high functioning addict. High-functioning addicts like Elannah Rose appear to be extremely successful, happy, and productive individuals who on the outside, just don’t give off signs of their addiction.

How terrifying. Even now I don’t know what to do with the idea that I could have had a person with such a horrible problem living under the same roof and not have seen it. What a complete failure. As a mother, as a human being. To not notice that this perfect creature that I made and raised was in such a dangerous state of mind and of health.

I don’t know if I will ever live through another day and not feel how much I failed her. And if every person in this room were sitting in judgment, I would understand. Because I was her mother. I was supposed to see it. I was supposed to be alert and to be paying attention. What was I doing instead?

I mentioned that Elannah Rose had already been using for three years by that time. She tried speed for the first time when she was thirteen, in the girls’ bathroom at Rosemont Middle School. She got the drugs from another student. In her time as an addict, she found it exceedingly easy to get access to any drugs, whether she was obtaining them from another student, or from people she met at our local convenience store, she could find someone to give her drugs if she wanted to.

For weeks after we first found out she was using drugs, I felt like I was living with two different people – my daughter who was so together that you couldn’t believe that she was doing anything, and this other person who picked at their own skin, couldn’t keep her hands from shaking, and hid homemade heroin pipes in her room. I remember at the time I wondered if she was exaggerating her behavior to mess with us. At some point, I did actually convince myself that while she may have tried drugs, her actual use had been hugely exaggerated.

At Elannah Roses request we kept her addiction a secret, even from most of our family. A few people knew, but only just enough to keep her in line – to scare her with cop stories about drug busts and jail, addiction stories from another recovering addict, and anything else we could think of to help her. Keeping that kind of a secret takes its toll.

When Elannah Rose seemed to get it together again, we believed that she was sober. We thought our home detox methods were actually successful.

We were so naïve. I later found out that she was only behaving normally because she was using again.

Unfortunately, this realization came after a few more cycles involving relapses. Each time we would threaten to send her to rehab, and each time she convinced us not to, and to continue with her horrible secret.

During this time my husband and I fought daily. We talked about divorce. I was convinced that it didn’t matter how much we loved each other, we would not make it through Elannah Roses addiction. This addiction, which wasn’t even ours, was going to come between us because we could not agree on how to handle it, and how to handle our daughter.

This whole time, we were trying not to let life suffer for our other children. And we may have fooled ourselves into thinking we were doing a good job, but looking back I can see how unhappy our household was.

I became so frustrated that I regularly snapped for no reason. I was a different mom, a different person. I think it was kind of a safety mechanism, I tried to control everything else, because I couldn’t control my daughter’s addiction.

This went on for about two years, during this time Elannah Rose lied to us regularly, successfully passed home drug tests while maintaining her drug use, and refused to acknowledge her problem with any real conviction.

Shortly after her 18^th birthday, Elannah Rose was arrested for possession. She didn’t tell us, like everything else in her other life, she did everything she could to keep it a secret.

I found out about the arrest one day when I opened our mail and there was a letter from an attorney offering their services. This was what life had become. A series of nightmarish surprises that ruined any comfort we could find on a regular basis. Now we were dealing with court, trying with renewed effort to get her into a rehab program. Desperate for anything that would save her.

My desperation made me believe that she was clean at an opportunity. I’m sure it’s easy to judge, from the outside, how stupid we were. How gullible. But let me remind you that, yes, we caught her doing bad things, but she was always functional. Except for the first time that we found out, she never displayed signs of her addiction. Her performance at school didn’t change, she was still dancing, and she was still working and had received a great promotion at her job. She was still highly functioning. She was still lying every day.

A few months after her high school graduation, I caught Elannah Rose smoking heroin in our garage.

Even when caught red-handed, Elannah Rose wouldn’t admit to using. By now we knew that she couldn’t continue to live with us without endangering her brother and sister. We agreed to kick her out of our home, as she still refused to go to a detox or rehab facility.

It only took a few weeks of couch-surfing for Elannah Rose to realize that she wasn’t willing to lose her family over her addiction. She agreed to go to a rehab facility and we checked her into one in Tarzana.

After two consecutive visits where we heard about other patients being caught with drugs on hand, we agreed that it would be best to move her. Elannah Rose moved to a recovery center in Culver City, which appeared to work.

The change was amazing. Not only was she in rehab, but she was going to counseling and surrounded by people who wanted to overcome their addictions.

Elannah Rose did very well for a time. Eventually, she slipped and used marijuana. Her relapse changed her. She became moody and difficult. She stopped participating in her recovery, begged regularly to come home, and eventually became deeply depressed. She began cutting herself to fight the need to do drugs.

Eventually she cut her wrists so badly that she was transferred to a lock down medical facility. I cannot describe the horror we felt at seeing our pint sized daughter, arms bandaged, locked up in a fenced in area with deeply sick people. It might have been the best thing for her. By this time her chemistry was so altered from the drugs that she needed medication to help her achieve normalcy. Her doctors were given the chance to find the right medication to help her to do so.

Once her chemistry started to normalize, Elannah Rose recovered beautifully. She went from the ward to Casa de las Amiga’s in Pasadena, where the strict program worked for her. She once again seemed to thrive, to fit in well and start to make connections. She started to seem happy, like her old self. It was a dream come true.

We looked forward to our weekly visits. We attended family therapy with her. Once she moved to sober living she would walk down to my office to have lunch with me, or visit after work. She was my baby girl again. It was amazing.

During one of our family therapy visits I broke down. The theme for the night was to talk about our biggest regrets.

After years of desperately trying to keep it together, I couldn’t answer this question without losing it.

 I am sorry that I wasn’t a better mother. I am sorry for everything I missed. Maybe if I had been older, wiser, had more to offer her, maybe she would have been ok. It was my fault. All of it. She was just a little girl that first time… I should have been there for her, she would have made better choices.

I was sitting in a room full of parents and their daughters. Most of them probably financially better off, some of them less well off. I was the youngest mother, some of them were grandparents. Addicts and parents alike corrected me, if it was my fault because I was a young mother, what was their excuse?

My daughter held my hand and did her best to explain that these were all her choices, and that nothing I did made her an addict. She lovingly explained to the room what I had given up in order to raise her, and everything she loved about me.

I think about this almost daily. It is a gift to have heard it, I carry it with me because I cannot carry her with me.

Eventually, Elannah Rose came home. She wanted a chance to be a good sister, and she was. She helped Abby, our middle child, with her homework every day. She spent every moment possible with her brother, who was three at the time. She had their names tattooed on her wrists so that if she ever got the urge to open them again her love for her brother and sister would remind her of what she had to live for.

We had months. Amazing, wonderful months in which she was perfectly her old self. I thank god for this gift, because it ended swiftly and suddenly.

One night, she didn’t come home on time. I was so angry. She had skipped her AA meeting to go out with a friend, she was supposed to be doing homework, but she was not. She was shooting up heroin, for the first and last time.

I was in our bedroom, my husband had decided to wait up for her in the living room.

I heard the door open, and something fall. It was my husband, when I came out he was sobbing on the floor. There was this woman standing there, repeating over and over that Elannah Rose was at the coroners, and I kept asking if I could see her. I don’t know how many times she had to repeat it. I started screaming, I couldn’t stop. At some point I turned around and Abby and Noah were standing in the hall. Still screaming, I bundled them up to take them across the street to my in laws house.

I still can’t pull the details together in my mind. I remember trying to get my brother in law to understand what had happened without actually saying it. I remember that woman asking to speak to someone who could keep it together.

I remember that the whole time that I was ranting about my daughter being late, she was dying. I was angry at her while she was lying alone in a gas station bathroom, breathing her last breaths.

I kept asking to see her. I wanted to hold her. It’s not like the movies or TV, I never got to say goodbye, I didn’t identify her body, and in later, weaker moments, I would pretend that there was a possibility that it wasn’t her.

Time became fragmented as we prepared for the funeral. I would sneak away to comb through her Facebook page, to look through pictures of her and to watch videos. Someone uploaded a picture of her laughing and I couldn’t stop watching it. I couldn’t stop because I would never hear it again.

I will never see her again. When she was an infant I had nightmares about bad things happening to her, now I have nightmares about her decomposing body. I can’t sleep on my own and I have to sit in my car every morning and cry so that I won’t cry during the day, or in the evening when my kids need me.

It’s been 21 months. I don’t know when I will be better.

My poor kids, Abby and Noah, now have to deal with me worrying about everything. It might be worse for Abby, who can remember a time when I didn’t freak out and assume she was dead if she didn’t answer the phone.

Strangers have to deal with the discomfort that comes after they ask me how many kids I have, because I refuse not to acknowledge Elannah Rose, and eventually I have to tell them that she is gone.

I’m sharing this with you because I hope that my loss can do some good. I hope that my daughter, who wanted to make a positive contribution to society, can do so through her story.

I was careful not to use the word “overdose” tonight, after reading an obituary for Phillip Seymour Hoffman last week in which the writer says that Mr. Hoffman “did not die from an overdose of heroin — he died from heroin. We should stop implying that if he’d just taken the proper amount then everything would have been fine.”  It’s such a simple and true statement. My daughter didn’t overdose. She died of her addiction, which was an illness she couldn’t manage, and there was no amount of the substance that she was addicted to that was safe for her to take.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I will keep my remaining children safe, since Elannah Rose died. I am not in law enforcement, I am not prepared to fight a war against drugs, and I am not interested in living a life that feels like I am at war with any part of my environment.

What I can do, is live like I am in a village and look to my neighbors to do the same. I love OUR children too much to live in my home like my neighbors are strangers. Having come from a small town where everyone is in everyone else’s business, I can tell you that that is much preferable to living in a town where not a single neighbor came running when I was screaming bloody murder. Or the code of silence that kept my daughters friends from telling me when they learned she was using. Or that same code of silence that allowed me to keep my daughters addiction a secret when I learned she was using.

I will never pass by a child who is in need. I will make sure that my home is open and safe to any of my children’s friends, I will be there for any of our kids who need help or who need help recovering from poor decisions. As much as I prefer to stay in the back ground, I will stand up in front of any crowd to raise awareness and wake up my community. And it is not our kids that need to be awakened, they see what their peers are doing, whether they speak up or not (and they must learn to speak up). It is our parents that need to band together for the good of our children, to wake up to the dangers that face them, and to do everything in our power to be the village that watches out for them together. 

New Years - 2014

I was trying to explain to someone why New Years is a hard time for me. The best I can say is that it is another end and another beginning that doesn't have my daughter in it. It's bittersweet at best, which doesn't mean I don't appreciate all that I have - I certainly do. But during such a celebrated occasion it's hard not to miss what is not there.

My new years resolutions came early.  At some point in 2013 I realized that I needed to do something with my grief, to use it to promote change, or I would wallow in it forever. 

When I look back on the things that I told my daughter about her future, that it was still full of opportunity, that she could still be anything she wanted to be, that through hard work and perseverance she could reopen any doors that she felt were closed to her, I realize that there are so many other kids out there who need the same level of support, and in order to honor my daughter I have to find a way to give it.

This also means that I cannot sit by and allow what happened with my daughter to happen again to another child. I have to find a way to use my daughters experience to help build a brighter future for my community, because one more addict grown in our schools is not acceptable. Another overdose, another family losing their child, another child buried... these are the things that we have to come together to fight against. I hope to use my experience to help open the eyes of my neighbors, and to build a tighter and stronger community.

In 2014 I will find a way to honor my daughter, to extend the support I gave her to others who might need it, to work with the  CV Alliance, CV Youth Alliance, and Youth Town Council to strengthen my community, and to use these things to help my family heal. This is my promise to my baby girl, to my family, and to myself.

19 Months

Baby Girl,

I couldn't stop thinking about you yesterday. Your beautiful smile, your amazing voice, your infectious laugh. It all hung around me like a dense fog. Thick and impossible to miss, but not quite tangible.

It's bound happen more now, I guess. The holidays are a bittersweet time. I am as wrapped up in your absence as I am in the joy of the season.

I talked at great length to the mother of one of your high school friends yesterday. You used with her child. I was struck,  as I always am when I see or talk about one of your old friends, by the fact that you are gone and they are here. I try so hard not to be jealous.

What a random roll of the dice this has all been. How crazy that some addicts use for decades, and you're gone forever. It is a hard thing to reconcile, and almost impossible not to feel cheated.

I love you each and every moment of every day. I do my best to dwell on the things that mattered about you, about who you were - not on the tragic decisions you made. Most days I am successful. 

I hate that you are gone, but I am so grateful that I had you at all.

Always,
Mommy

16 months

Baby Girl,

I'm sorry I haven't written in awhile. I miss you so much, it bowls me over sometimes. In the past few months I've tried so hard to ignore how much it still hurts that you are gone.

Every so often someone asks if I'm doing better, and I just looked at them and think, "you don't really want me to answer that".

It's harder when people actually want to know. When I give some non-committal answer and they look at me like they'd like to shake me until I actually say something meaningful.

Listen, I'm not ok. I know that. I know it's awkward and scary and weird for people who actually recognize that.

I'm not in denial. But, here's the thing. I have a giant hole in my life, and nothing can fill it. I had a perfect circle of joy. My son. My daughters. My wonderful, crazy, and inappropriate family. It is broken. You broke it, in one stupid instant.

And every time someone wants to really know how that feels, I have to think about it. And that's harder than talking to people who don't really want to know. Or burying myself in my daily rituals. Daddy says I'm not processing, or even really coping. But, I feel like that's ok. I mean, it's just what is going on right now.

Sixteen months. Sixteen months without hearing your beautiful voice, seeing your radiant smile, having a fight, or listening to your bubbly laugh. It's an eternity and it has passed in slow motion, and in the blink of an eye.

You cannot love more than you love your babies. And so I have to believe that there is no wound greater than this loss. So, sometimes turning on the radio, or brushing my hair, or even just being nice... is too much. Sometimes it is all I can do to lose myself in anything that will distract me from your absence.

There are other days, where your brother and sister fill me with their life, and I can accept your death and drown myself in their joy. This is ok. I accept it, I welcome it. This grief paired with their joy reminds me that I am alive and here to carry on.

I am so grateful for your brother and sister. They fill my vision with the future, so even though I choke on the fact that you are not in it, I can look forward to it. And even, maybe someday, to the easing of the pain.

Sixteen months is not so long. I mothered you for over eighteen years, during which I probably never spent eighteen straight days away from you.

I used to tell your daddy, after we'd been together for months, that we'd known each other for minutes in the grand scheme of things. So he reminded me tonight that in the grand scheme of things, you've only been gone for minutes. Really, not enough time to get used to your absence.

Not enough time to stop being jealous when I hear other moms talking about their kids college plans. Not enough time to stop being angry that we were the ones who lost their daughter. Not enough time to stop wishing I could hold you, and tuck you in at night. Not enough time to stop agonizing over what is happening to your body, and where your soul is right now. Not enough time to be ok.

Lucky for me, I am surrounded by people who are more than happy to talk some sense into me. And who really care that even if I am not ok today, I'll still make it through to tomorrow morning. Sometimes I want to hide from them, but mostly I am smart enough to understand and grateful enough to listen.

I will miss you every moment for the rest of my life, and I will never be ok with this outcome. And it will take a long, long time before I can stop treading water and really be whatever version of ok I will be.

I love you so much, Peach. You were the best part of me, and you made me the best version of myself I could have ever wished to be.

As always, I hope that you are happy and somewhere magical and musical. And that you are singing at the top of your lungs. Someday I will sing with you again.

Love,
Mommy

Birthday

It seems unfair that the anniversary of your life and the anniversary of your death are so close together. I  barely got through one, and now the other looms ahead like a threat.

I have been spending my days fighting tears, trying to wrap myself in the safety of the here and now,  trying to get caught up in the excitement of daily life... it does work for short bursts of time, but always I am sucked back into this anxiety, this loss. Waiting for your birthday. Waiting for this sense of dread to pass. Waiting for everything to settle. Not quite into a happy pattern, but at least into acceptance.

I think I was actually better last year. At least I understood that the intensity of emotion was directly related to the immediacy of your loss. But now... I am drowning. I am lost at sea. I am breaking.

I used to look forward to your birthday celebration with such excitement. I didn't think it would come back to this. Will it always? I don't know if I can take it anymore. I'm tired, and I'm scared that this won't go away.

I lived for so long in fear that you wouldn't come home, and after it happened I put all of my energy into recovering and into protecting our family from falling apart. I thought it was working, but here I am again, just as broken as I was on that first day.

I miss you, Baby Girl. I'm lost without you, you were too much a part of me.

I don't know how to let you go, I only know that I must. And I have to do all that I can to try to believe that you are in a better place, and that you are happy, and at peace. If I can believe that, maybe I can find some peace of my own. As selfish as that feels, I desperately need to figure it out.

I love you. I pray for you every day.
Love,
Mommy

The Unveiling

On May 19th we had the service for the unveiling of my daughters headstone. This is a long standing Jewish tradition, and end to the first year of mourning, another ceremony to honor our lost loved ones lives.

I wanted to share what I suppose should be called a eulogy. What I spoke of when I honored my daughter... I did ad-lib a bit, but this is the gist of it.

In the past few weeks I have been trying to figure out what to say as we stand her next to my daughters graveside. I wanted to remark on her amazing life and all that there is to celebrate about her, to help lift us out of the sadness of this day.

I couldn't do it, my heart has been weighted down by the significance of this ceremony and I just couldn't do it.

And then last night I recalled a specific event. My daughter at two years old dragging me around by my finger as she led our way through a crowd of people. Just being around that many people would have had me crawling out of my skin, but my not quite two foot tall daughter could not be intimidated, and as in most of the adventures we had together, she carved the path that I would follow.

It was definitely true when we met our new family. Though they were most certainly hesitant when their son showed up with his new girlfriend and her daughter. My girl swept into their lives as if to say "whats not to love?"  She certainly stole their hearts first. As she stole my husbands when she met him and he courted us. She was well aware that he fell in love with her first and she became his best friend, his cohort, his partner in crime.

She absorbed everything he could teach her about life and inspired him to be a father. I know that when it came to her there was never a question of how perfectly she fit into his life.

There is so much to celebrate and there are so many joyful memories to lift our hearts. This is an amazing gift. As I sort through the huge store of photos I am grateful for my need to document EVERYTHING, because each picture tells a story I might otherwise forget.

This is our job now, to remember, even though we are still devastated by her loss. We need to ensure that my son knows his oldest sister, even though he will only know her through the rest of us.

We need to remember her, and celebrate her, keeping in mind that, at least to me, she is really what brought us all together.

My husbands curiosity about the woman with that cute little kid, and the love story that started with three people and brought us all here.

It is difficult to think of blessings in a time of such loss, but we have done many things in the past year to stay connected to my daughter. From gathering together to grieve, to digging through photos and videos, to family trips for tattoos (which I'm sure entertained my girl to no end). We have come together again and again to honor and remember her.

By doing so we have strengthened our bonds as family and friends. This is her legacy, these are the things that I choose to focus on when I think of her, so that wherever her spirit is, she feels my love.

Sharing my story is another way of honoring her, and of hopefully helping others who are going through similar things - or perhaps derailing a similar loss.  Thank you for reading.

Anniversaries

Baby Girl,

I haven't been on speaking terms with you for the last couple of months. I'm so heartbroken by what you've done that I haven't been able to think of anything nice to say to you. How could you leave us? How could you do this to your sister? I have to see what she's going through, I have to be here and help her pick up the pieces... you left us! There is a part of me that just thinks you are such an asshole! You seriously screwed all of us up and it was so damn selfish.

But it's just because I miss you so much. You have left such a huge hole in all of our hearts and lives and I don't know what to do with it.

Life goes on. It's been close to a year since you left us and I am still broken. I won't exaggerate it. I have days where I am OK .. I have moments where I'm great... but every one of those moments is eventually tainted by the fact that you are not there to celebrate it with us.

What's changed in the past year? I don't feel guilty for thinking you're a jack-ass. Because you are, you put your immediate desires above your health and safety and it cost you your life, and it cost us you. If you were here I would punch you in the face for being such a jerk. I am not in the mood to paint a pretty little picture and talk about how much pain you were in and continue to try to understand and put your feelings first. You were a selfish jerk when you put that needle in your vein and you ditched us.

It doesn't diminish the fact that I love and adore you and my arms ache to hold you.

I have been sorting through pictures again so that I could get them scanned, in books, and out of the hidden corners that I am so horrified to stumble upon on a daily basis. I still can't go in the garage. I can't open the hallway cupboard, I can't go into my top left dresser drawer.... The little nooks that I stashed your things in to deal with on another day have started to haunt me. I've forgotten where all of them are and I am startled every time I stumble across something. They are traps and I keep getting caught up in them.

And now, in the month that has not one, but two anniversary dates of your passing (the Jewish calendar anniversary and the regular one), I am overwhelmed by the significance of actually making it to these dates. I didn't actually think that I would. It's not that I planned to do anything, I'm not remotely there... I just couldn't imagine living this long without you. And here we are, performing all that is expected of us, stepping through the nightmare of yet another cycle of ceremonies.

And our hearts are still broken. And our arms ache to hold you, and so we hold each other tighter and pray that we can continue to pick up the pieces and figure out how to be OK without you, and to stop feeling guilty about it when we feel like we might be.

I love you, Baby Girl. As much as I hate that you are gone, I hope that you are at peace and singing. I hope that you look down and watch your sister play lacrosse with pride because she puts her all into it, and she wants you to know. I hope that you watch your brother and laugh at his escapades. I hope that you can forgive me for my anger, and that I can forgive you for leaving us.

Forever,
Mommy

Magical Princess