Aiya

Dear Diary,
Today marks the 14th anniversary of mom leaving. I know this because she left on my 4th birthday. I can’t remember everything because my memory is a little hazy but I can remember it being a warm December afternoon. Maybe it was because we were in the house but I just remember everything being a lot warmer and happier. The sun was shining bright and we were all at the cabin in Michigan. Dad and I haven’t been up there since I was 12. What once was a yearly tradition ceased when mom left. We went back the summer after I turned 12, dad thought it’d be cool and fun because we hadn’t had a vacation in so long but it just brought back too many memories. Dad doesn’t have the heart to sell the cabin even though we could use the money. It needs a fixer-upper but I think it’s sellable.

Mom had given me a charm bracelet with two figurines on it; just a heart and a sun. She told me I warm her heart and that as long as I wear the bracelet, my heart will stay warm and I can keep the sun shining with my love. Every year on my birthday I take out the things mom left for me like letters and cards and of course the bracelet. I take them out every year, put on the bracelet and read through the things she left. The notes and cards are something just special for me. Dad knows about them but I don’t believe that he has ever read any of them. I guess it’s something in how she wrote the notes that lead me to believe they aren’t just regular I-love-you-have-a-wonderful-day notes. After all, I was a toddler I couldn’t read. There’s something significant in letters you received as a toddler. It’s like getting a letter from your dog that you gave up for adoption. It’s like they are writing to comfort you. Or letters you get from dead people, like in the movie PS I Love You, they have a meaning to them, but for some reason I can’t figure out the meanings in my letters.

The whole jest of the letters is for me to keep loving and how love helps the world to go ‘round, how she left because she loved us so much, how love makes you make stupid and hard decisions but to never stop loving because love, in the end is all we really have. I fail to see how love has impacted my life positively. My mother left because of love, my father is depressed because of love and tonight as I celebrate my 18th birthday alone at home, I am angry because of love.
~Aiya~