Nineteen

It's so difficult to imagine you as a woman grown.

You were, you will be, always one day old, the day we gained and lost you.

But before I lost you, while you were still tiny, you grew strong in my heart and straight and tall in my thoughts. You were my grown girl before the day you were born.

I couldn't believe that day would never come.

 But it didn't, did it, love?

You never grew past that day.

How could I have guessed? How could I have known, that the hug I would give you nineteen years ago tomorrow would be the first and last we would ever share? That the only place you would ever grow would be in my heart?

I will always miss you, darling. But this day most of all, the first and last day I would get to hold you, hoping even as I knew I could not hold you, that you had gone on before me, impatient, to that place where all the stars go out.

But I know that, after all these long years, that you will always go on, and I and your mother will always be left here behind, empty of you and aching for you and grieving for the loss of you, both the you we lost that day and the you who would have been standing before me today; strong and straight and tall, my daughter, my dearest heart.

Let me hug you one last time before you go.

You're so big. I'm so proud of you. 

Goodbye, love. Goodbye.

 Bryn Rose Gellar March 1, 2002-March 2, 2002