15 whole years.
15 whole years have passed since you left this earth.
Since you left me…
It’s crazy to think I’ve gone this long in life without your hugs, your love, your guidance.
To have gone this long without hearing your voice…
You were my best friend… The woman who taught me nearly everything I know.
It’s true.
Of course my parents were a BIG part of my life and shaped the person I am today.
But you…
You impacted me in more ways than I can say.
The things you taught me, the lessons you shared, stuck with me to this day.
They’re the lessons I keep coming back to on the daily.
Lessons that live on in the smallest, most ordinary moments of my life.
Everything I do reminds me of you.
Like how I cook and bake in the kitchen (I still use your recipes, just “vegan-versions” now).
And the way I brush my hair (you always told me to start with the ends first to avoid pulling my hair so badly – you were right).
The way I do dishes even (how I scrape at the pesky stuck-on food with my nails instead of pulling out the scrubber again).
And when I do that…
… my hands remind me of yours.
I see you in me all the time.
Especially when the sun hits my hair just right – I catch the red gleam in it that came from you.
You always used to say how “blessed” I was to have dark hair and dark eyes.
You loved my features.
At the time, I wanted nothing else than to look more like you and the rest of our family – blonde or red hair, blue or green eyes…
But I get it now.
I’m grateful for who I am. And I’m grateful that you saw the beauty in me before I did.
Thank you for loving me unconditionally.
I miss your love more than you know.
Last month, a video popped up on my instagram feed of these adult grandchildren all surprising their grandma with a sleepover.
All I could think was… I wish…
I wish that was me…
I wish I was the one sleeping over at your house again…
I miss our sleepovers.
I miss waking up to the smell of fresh buns baking in the oven.
I miss making popcorn for movie nights on the “chesterfield” (I miss that you even called the couch a chesterfield – I haven’t heard that word said out loud in 15 years).
I miss the way you’d say, “that better not be your mom calling again,” every time the phone would ring (and of course it was her).
I miss getting home-baked cookies for my birthday every year – my favourite cookies, dream cookies.
(You’d tell me they were boring and you didn’t understand why they were my favourites, but you baked them every single year anyways)
Thank you for that.
It breaks my heart every year when I have to bake my own birthday cookies.
They’re never as good as yours.
Sometimes dad tries to make them for me – and I greatly appreciate the gesture…
But his are even worse than mine.
I try to bake his favourite cookies for his birthday too, the Chocolate drops you’d bake him every year, and I know he thinks the same thing.
We miss you.
I miss you.
I miss everything about you.
Even your music – the funny old songs you’d listen and sing along to.
The songs on the mixtape that Grampa made you.
I used to have all of those songs on my old iTunes – I downloaded them when you passed away.
But I lost access to my old iTunes. And I lost them all…
Jaclyn asked me about that mixtape recently and those songs… So I went on a searching-spree…
I could remember at least 2 of them and thanks to YouTube suggestions, ChatGPT brainstorming (I know, I know… you’d probably boycott this technology right alongside the cellphone you refused to get), and with help from dad and Jacyln…
We managed to find almost all of those songs.
I listened to that entire playlist of your songs as I wrote this.
They reminded me so much of you, of Grampa.
They took me back to your living room, listening to them on Grampa’s “new” stereo (the giant one that has both a cassette player and CD player), singing them out loud.
I can still hear your voice singing along to them in my head…
15 whole years.
15 whole years without hearing your voice out loud like that.
15 whole years without you in my life.
That’s a long time – too long of a time.
I often wonder what you’d think of me now, of who I’ve become.
Would you be proud of me and everything that I’ve accomplished?
Would you still be cheering for me on the sidelines?
Just like you used to when I was a kid.
I don’t know for sure, but I’d like to think that you would be.
I’d like to think that you’d still be by my side, still supporting me – even after all the stupid things I did in my 20’s.
That you’d tell me “it’s okay, you needed to go through that in order to become who you are today, Cassie-coo-coo.”
That you’d tell me you love me and hold me tight.
I don’t know for certain… And I guess I never will.
But in my head, at least, that’s how I’ll imagine it.
With love,
Miss T. (A.k.a. Cassie-coo-coo) 💕
Mindful Miss T. 