For the Friend I Lost, and the Friend Who Carries On Without Her

You can see it in her face.

It isn’t lines or age.

It’s time and pain.

There has been so much hurt.

So much loss.

It wasn’t even my mom, who is gone,

But sometimes I feel like it was.

I’m afraid to express my own pain,

Because it isn’t fair to her,

Since she lost more than the rest of us.

But she wears her pain

Like water wears the glow of the morning sun.

It’s made her better,

Stronger,

More beautiful.

She makes me want to be like her—

And that’s the same way her mother always made me feel.