I looked at the date for the last entry. It was the Sunday before she passed away in her sleep. My hand started to shake so hard I had to set the book down on the table. I just stared at the wood grain for a long minute. I felt like a stranger looking at the life of someone who was loved so much more than they deserved to be. I was that stranger.

I finally picked the notebook back up. I had to know what the last thing she had written about me was. I turned to the very last page, and the ink was a little shaky, like she had been tired when she held the pen. It just said, “Called Susan. She didn’t pick up. I hope she knows I am proud of her anyway.”

I let out a breath that I felt like I had been holding for twenty years. I just sat there in the kitchen, the sun shifting across the floor, and started to cry. I was not crying because she was gone, though that hurt enough. I was crying because I had been so busy being an adult that I forgot to be a daughter. I had treated her love like it was something that would always be there, just waiting for me to get around to it.

The next few days were a blur. I went through the house, but I kept coming back to the kitchen table.

I started to wonder if I could ever forgive myself for all those missed Sundays. I had been so caught up in the noise of my own life that I had turned the volume down on the one person who cared about the silence.

I walked into the living room and found the old photo album on the shelf. I started flipping through pictures of us, and for the first time, I really looked at her face. She was always smiling, even when I knew she was lonely. She had been carrying my life around in that little blue notebook, and I had barely given her ten minutes of my time on a good day.

I know what people would say if they saw this. They would tell me that parents know their kids are busy, and that I should not be so hard on myself. But that is just a way to make the guilt go away, and I am not sure I want it to go away yet. I think I need to feel it, just for a little while, to remind me that love is not a thing you keep in a drawer.