Dear Martigan,
The past three months have been a painful blur for me, and I think I've missed out on some things. I've been here, of course. I haven't gone anywhere; I never will. But, I'm not always all-the-way-here. Sometimes I will hear your little voice becoming agitated and realize you've been talking at me for many moments without recognition, that I've been lost in my head, and the guilt of that crushes me. Your dad and I have done our best to explain to you why things are different now. None of these explanations make a whole lot of sense to you, but you're picking up on the fact that life is strange and unfair, and sometimes people are disappointing. Try as I might to protect you from those facts, I can't wave them away when they land on our doorstep. I can only kneel next to you and listen hard while you talk, and answer your questions as honestly and simply as I know how, and apologize if I miss what you say the first time, then listen harder. Even when I've been distracted and sad, I have loved you and I have been amazed by you.
And we've had fun. You are a joyful creature. You are a creature full of a lot of feelings, joy being one of them. We laugh quite a lot. You have that same clownish impulse as your dad, that same desire to see me giggling until tears spring to my eyes. You are so kind, so intuitive and sweet. I never worry about the man you'll be. But, I do want to do a better job of watching you and guiding you as you become that man, whether the world is falling down around us or not.
I love you always, in every moment, every day,
Mama
