Day 26

Dear Mel,

I am sorry. I know I am not consistent enough. Even though I still number everyday like I am. :) I am just going to be honest. I just can't. My heart is there but in the end I have realized that my thirty day project will probably take close to sixty. Everyday I think about you. Some days are clear and concise and I know exactly what I want to say. Others, most days, are a jumble of thoughts and feelings. My ability to write it down greatly depends on my "emotional state" for the day. Usually if I am having a tough day I tend to be more willing to "emotionally vomit"...those are your words BTW...on you and I feel better. Other days I am relatively happy and I don't want to touch for fear of sinking again. I have to take full advantage of my good days and also allow my bad days to flush themselves out. So, once again you have become my sounding board just like normal. This a little harder though because you never talk back. I my mind though I always like to imagine that I know you well enough by now that I know just how you would react and what you would say. Someday you may have to correct me on that assumption.
The other day I cracked open my photos. The ones I came home with after your funeral and haven't dared to look at since. I didn't want to think about it at all. I didn't need help recalling how much I miss you, but that was a good day, so I decided it was better to do it on a good day than a bad one. It was actually really fun. I love watching you change over the years. All my photos are of you in high school and when you were still having babies. Many of them you are pregnant...which I know were your favorite.
Today the ones that did prick my heart were the ones I found of you, me, and Jay. Now that she is the only living sister I have I tend to lean on her more than I should. She and I are in the same place. We both deal very differently. She usually calls and talks and I know she is having a bad by the sound of her voice even though she doesn't say it. She doesn't want to talk about it she just wants someone on the other line. Me I like to fix everything. Anything I come to understand I want to share so I can make it better for her. Believe me I know how SUPER annoying it is but it is just my compulsion and the majority of the time it gets the better of me.
God knew what he was doing when he made the three of us sisters. He knew we needed each other. He knew he could put three people together and while they were all very different they all had good hearts and he knew that we would understand how much we needed one another. I rejoice in my heart often over the fact that our brothers and sister have accepted our need to be together and our desire to share in one another lives. I know with your death it has brought many questions to the surface about how good of a person I am to those I love most, but deep down I know that we did care for each other and we all showed it by our dedication to each other and their families. You were a great sister. I would give anything to go back and live each memory with you over the last twenty-seven years. I curse my mind almost daily for the loss of memory I already feel I am having. I just pray that maybe when the cloud lifts from my mind things may be a little clearer. I need you. I need you so bad it hurts. I have so many questions. So many things I took for granted that I could ask you and now when I think of them a pain shoots through my heart. I know there are others around me to ask that I trust but the difference is is that in your answers I am sure. Others I have to evaluate and think through but I trust your opinion completely. I know you always try to do the right thing. I know that you take the time to think it through. I often finding myself wanting to ask you questions about your girls and if you were in my situation what would you do. Often times I don't know how we will get through this life. Sometimes things feel like they are going to fall apart before we see you again. I know there is hope in the Savior, in your resurrection, but it is the right here and now that scares me. The next few years. I don't know what to do for your girls. I don't know how to calm their breaking hearts. Sometimes I feel like everyone around them is in such a terrible spot to help because we don't even know what we are doing. Plus we are just trying to keep our heads above water, too. I don't know how to be something I am not. They don't want me or Jay they want you and that is the hardest thing of all. There is no fix there is only band aides. They stay for awhile and then they fall off and it all opens up again.
I remember all those weekends when the three of us would get together and revel in our motherly bliss. More like chaos. It was to watch them enjoy each other and be together. Take in how each of us handle our own children. Watch as you worked furiously to be the favorite aunt to all of me and Jay's kids. (We know that is your secret. To be all their favorites. You were/are pretty tough competition. I feel like I will never top you and I am not sure I want to.) I remember the laughing, talking, fights (between kids), mass meals produced, and projects. Like the time we decided to turn Jayanne's bedroom into a photo studio. We dressed them all up and took a thousand shots of them all together. Now they hang on Dad's wall. Fun was had, being together was what it was really all about, and we would ended the day exhausted. I lived for times like that in Utah. To be honest I am scared to go back. Scared for the quietness that will accompany such an event without you. Scared of the absence that will be painfully apparent. I wonder often if we will ever share such moments again. I imagine we will because I think the next life will be filled with happiness and those are some of my happiest here on earth. I miss you. I love you!

Love, Lar