It is Thanksgiving. You have been dead for almost four months. I'm living in Venice Beach now, in a little one bedroom apartment a few blocks from the ocean. It's nice here, peaceful.

It is a little after two in the afternoon and I'm at home by myself, listening to Otis Redding. There is a pumpkin pie in the oven and the house smells rich like cinnamon and November, even though it is 70 degrees and sunny.

This year we're having Thanksgiving at Holly and Kevin's. I live down the street from them now. Holly and I are making a completely traditional dinner and cooking our first turkey ever. I'll be going back over there in a bit but for now, I'm alone.

I miss you. I don't feel like I belong to anyone anymore. It's not really true and I have to stop thinking that way or else I'll never stop feeling as sad as I do these days but I just can't help it. Everything has changed. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life anymore. Sometimes I feel like I could just disappear, slip beneath the surface, that it wouldn't really matter.

I can't really remember that tough girl I was once, the one who vowed never to stop. I keep reaching for her hand but it's just out of grasp. I can hardly describe the feeling of having both you and mom gone. I feel disconnected from everything. I'm still here, breathing, living, going to the grocery store, laughing, sleeping, eating but there's an emptiness, a meaningless to it all. Like in the movies when the astronaut accidently floats away from the ship and you watch, horrified, as they just glide farther and farther out into the blackness, never to return to earth. That's kind of what it feels like. I'm still safe in my space suit; I could live for a while but it's just me, no longer connected to anything or anyone, destined to drift farther and farther away.

On Monday I went down to the condo for the last time. We closed on it yesterday. All the rooms were empty, the walls blank, the new family already busy painting and cleaning. I walked into your bedroom, the blinds off the window and the room bright and empty. I don't know why I had to cry. You've been gone. You were gone the moment after you took that last breath, you'd been mostly gone before you even did that.

I just can't believe that I'll never see you again. Yesterday, in the afternoon, I dreamt that you called on the phone. You were dead but somehow able to call. There was a lot of interference and I felt like you couldn't hear me. Now I'm crying again.

I don't know how to fucking do this. I miss you too much. I still need a father and a mother. I don't want to be alone like this. I'm so jealous of everyone else's parents and it's a horrible feeling.

I know you'd want me to be strong. I know you think I can do this and that I will do it. And I'll try. I really will. I just miss you.

Love, Claire
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