All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother. - Abe Lincoln

So its been just over 6 months since my mom passed away, and I still think of her everyday to the point of my crying. Little by little it gets easier but some days it just hits me hard! The past few days I have been cleaning and organizing my craft room so I can kind of take stock of what I actually have. Trying to keep from buying unnecessary duplicates. In all my cleaning and junk throwing out I keep stumbling upon pics of my mom. All different types of pics... old ones of her and I when I was little, pics or her and Mike and just random pics of everything/everyone. Each picture is like a tiny pin that just pokes deeper and deeper into my heart. Then I found the box I had been avoiding, the box of her papers and mish-mosh from her old job/s.
Inside the box is lots of weird pens and post it pads, and COUNTLESS pictures. Pictures of Ryan, Velma's kids, Ben and I, Kelsey and pictures of Grandpa Smith. (who passed away almost two weeks ago) It all just served as a reminder that even when she was so self absorbed and so self damaging she never stopped keeping us all in her heart. She loved everyone but herself, and so selflessly! So through all the cleaning I was, of course, sobbing and dripping tears all over the place. Then I found, in some of my stuff, a letter. I had forgotten all about this letter. It was one of the real letters she wrote me while she was in rehab, full of her daily routine and learning's. Over half way through the letter she begins hinting at how one of her steps in recovery is to make amends. (Like I didn't know, lol) So she begins to make her amends to me in the letter, kind of back handed and saying that I don't have to believe what she is saying but that she is sorry all the same.
At first, upon re-reading it, I was angry... how dare she say it in a letter. How could it not have been important enough to say to my face, or to at least to say to me on the phone so that we could discuss it a little. I was just about to start fuming and then it hit me... how hard it must have been to write it? How hard for her it must have been to just put it out there, not knowing how I would construe its meanings. Not being able to expand or really explain how she intended it to sound. Just an uncomplicated "I'm sorry". I know it was no easy task for her and just because it wasn't how I would have liked her to say it doesn't negate its meaning! I only wish I had seen this when she wrote it to me, rather then just discarding it into the pile of random letters and post-cards from her.
I know whats done is done and I know that there is no way of knowing. I just wish I could have 5 minutes to hug her and tell her I forgive her. To tell her I understand and love her. Everyone just tells me to tell her now and that she will "hear me"... its not the same though and I am sad for it. I know she knew I loved her and I know she loved me, I would just love to really tell her.