Now, I know that my mother is never out of view. I know that I remember her every day, Rocky Road ice cream in a grocery store, the stack of books next to my bed, a Guns N’ Roses song on the radio—yes, my mother loved Axl Rose. I remember her when I see nothing but the white wall behind my desk—she’s rubbing sunscreen into Chris’s shoulders, writing messages in the margins of my grade school stories. I’m grateful to have her this way now, in my students’ groans when I make a pun, in Lizzie’s voice on the phone, in a woman’s laugh when I imagine, What would Mom think of her? This is loss. This
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