I can't find you...

Dear Mom and Dad, 

Where are you now? 

This long goodbye leaves me feeling very much like an orphan, unsettled, lost, and alone.  I can't go "home" anymore... you're not there.  I can go visit you at the nursing home, but you're not really there.  You are, though. I can hug you. I can hold your hands, Mom and laugh with you. I can rub your back, Dad... just the way you like it.  But you're not you. You're not there.  

Where are you?

I visited the grave that I purchased for you to see the stone.  My breath left my lungs in the most painful, gulping-sobs kind of way when I saw it.  You're not there either.  Grief is hard, and so easily misunderstood.  I'm grieving what is no longer there, but also what is not yet gone.

Where are you?

There are days where I need to remind myself to drive across the street to embrace you, to feel that warmth, to see your smiles.  There are also days where it takes everything I have in me to be there.  It hurts.  It isn't fair.  

Where are you?

 As much as I'm asking that question, I have to wonder if you are too?  Maybe it is a daily question for you... even by the minute.  Maybe you just exist in my memories... in my heart, in photographs, in the letters you've written me before it all slipped away.  

Maybe I need to hold onto the fact that our souls will find each other again someday and, with a sigh of relief, we will say, "Ahh... there you are."

With all the love,

Your searching daughter