Letter to My Mother on Her Birthday (In Memory of Her Beautiful Soul)

Dear Mom,

Today is your birthday.
If you were still here, you would be 76 years old.

In so many ways, you are still here.

You have been gone since 2011, and I have written you letters before, small attempts to bridge the silence between us. There has always been so much I wanted to tell you, so much I didn’t say when I still had the chance.

On your birthday, I bake a cake with my son. For his grandmother, whom he never met.
I tell him about your kindness, your strength, your beautiful soul. In those moments, you live again, in stories, in laughter, in the sweetness we share.

I never stopped missing you.
But these days, I feel your absence even more deeply.

I miss you after moving to a new country.
After becoming a mother myself.
After my marriage… and after my divorce.
Through all the shifting seasons of my life.

I miss you when I watch my son grow into a boy who is almost a teenager.

I miss you in quiet nights when I question myself:
Am I a good mother?
How can I be better?

I miss you in the spaces where motherhood feels heavy, where expectations and identities collide, woman, mother, artist, person.

I miss you when I remember your courage, how you fed a family of four in the midst of war,
how you carried us through fear so we could feel safe, how your strength never wavered, even in the hardest moments.

I miss your kindness, and how gentle you were with others, how deeply you cared...

You never stood in the way of my dreams. Instead, you cleared the path, as much as you could, in every way you could.

Your support became my courage.

I msis you during the moments when I don’t know what to do, when my son is upset and I lose patience, when I am exhausted after long days of work and life.

Those are the times I wish I could call you, to show you our garden, the first spring flowers blooming again. I wish I could cook for you, to introduce you to my new partner, to sit with you and talk about everything and nothing.

I miss you in a thousand ordinary moments, the kind that shape a life.

And I know this will never change.

I will never stop missing you, my dear mom, and I will never stop carrying you, with me, within me, in everything I am.