For My Mother

Lately I feel like a punching bag, hit with all types of emotions coming from everywhere and everyone. So I've been feeling moody and crappy as of late. It doesn't help that it's march 11th, the day my mother died. This marks the first anniverary since her departure. She died from a hemorage in her head. ironically, it's raining and cold. When she died, it rained a lot.

Anyway, this is a portrait of my mother. This was based on her very last photograph. For a long time I couldn't look at it. On the day she collapsed, she was dressed up as a cat for the kids at the school she worked for. I never got to see this photo until the day of the funeral and some teacher made a slide show of my mother. Jesus. I couldn't stop crying. I see my mother, smiling, holding this cute stuffed animal, dressed up adorably, and the tears can't stop. Today, I was going to do my homework and just treat this day like any other day, but I couldn't bear the thought of not doing something without her. So I drew this from that photo. Here's to my mom. And here's a little something from one of the children books she gave me once and made me cry:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my Mommy you'll be.