Six years ago today I sat next to my mother’s hospital bed and held her hand, listening for her final breath. I watched the spiky glowing line of her heart monitor flatten into a solid neon smoothness. After she was gone, I loosened the neck of her hospital gown and gently stroked her still-warm belly, criss-crossed by the stretch marks I had made from within her.
When I was twelve years old, she wrote this letter to me, just before heading into the surgery that would define the rest of her life. She was not sure she would survive the operating table, and wanted to make certain that I knew just how much she loved me. I keep this note in my underwear drawer. I take it out and read it on days when I need her.