Dear Mom, Mother's Day is almost here again, and the world feels cruel in the most beautiful way. Every store window, every advertisement, every laughing daughter carrying flowers — they all whisper your name. It has been years, Mom. People say it gets easier. Maybe it does. But "easier" never meant "gone.” I still reach for my phone to call you. I still cook your recipes wrong on purpose, hoping somehow you'll appear to correct me. I watch others rushing to buy cards and make reservations, and I stand there hollow, holding a love that has absolutely nowhere to go now. Do you know how strange it is to have a mother's love alive inside your chest, but no mother to give it back to? I don't want flowers or brunch. I just want five minutes. Your voice. Your hands. The way you said my name like it was something precious. Heaven better be treating you like the queen you always were, because this earth has felt significantly emptier without you in it. I'll light a candle for you on Sunday. Save me a seat up there, Mom. All my love, always and forever, “Your child who still needs you”