For my Mama...

(my mother loved jade green flowers)

All of my life, I have claimed to be a realist. I clung to this label as a way to stand against the unreality of life, the fantasies people tell themselves, the drugs/drinking/sex people fall into to not have to deal with the realities of life (I typed that sentence and sat here looking at it thinking: REALLY????).

You and I, Mama, had this conversation a few times in my life as you tried to explain to me your way of dealing with reality. And I didn't listen in my moral superiority, in the safety of being "a realist".

I come to you now, too late, of course, to tell you I'm sorry. The realist has always kept a toe (or maybe a whole foot or leg) in unreality, utterly incapable of seeing it, of shattering the safety of thinking "I'm a realist".

I am...most of the time...but in one area of my life I have lived an utter fantasy. A dream that could never be reality based on a perception that was never a reality. And I never even saw it until the other day...

It almost shattered me. Then it humbled me. And now it brings me here, to you, to say I'm sorry, Mama. I was so blind. Thankfully I know you loved me anyway. You and Gram and Daddy had to have seen it, but you all loved me too much to slap me in the face with it. I love you all and I thank you for your grace...