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I don't have a mother anymore and yet... 

Somehow, I'm still expected to live my life.

Normally.

Like a full-fledged, rational human being except...

I'm not.

Grief isn't rational.

I wake up every morning with the same sense of loss, with the deepest HOLLOW I've ever experienced.

I have Amira, of course and I truly thank God every day for that miracle.

I have Amira and Fareeda and Jewel but... 

Both of my parents are gone now.

I don't have a mother anymore.

I don't have my mother.

There are no more doctors to call, no more prescriptions to fill, no new medications to try because my mother is gone.

Resting in peace at last.

But...

I haven't gotten there yet.

To the peaceful part.

Most of the time, what I feel is loss. 

It's most acute, most palpable when I'm in Cambridge.

I've been back only once since my mother died and hope not to return anytime soon. 

I went "home" to Cambridge for Little Desi's 30th birthday party but I stayed with Kay instead of my mother because she isn't there anymore.  

She's gone.

But there are times, times when the hollow doesn't threaten to swallow me whole.

Fareeda is my home now. We're all that's left of our mother and father.

Of US.

We're all that's left of 128 Cherry St Apt 1 and that notion, that FACT, that's what threatens to take me under each and every day of my life.

But when I'm in New Jersey

When I'm sitting on that couch watching "African movies" with Charmaine and Aunt Esther;

When Katrina and JaVaughn dance their way into the foyer each and every time they arrive at Fred's house;

When Fareeda gossips with her girlfriends on the phone while tending to Jewel, looking and sounding so much like our Mother... 

That's home now. 

So...

I'm biding my time till I can move to New Jersey.

When Amira goes off to college I too will say goodbye to Chicago.

I can't be happy here anymore.

I need to be with my family now.