Julia Charra

“What makes you suffer the most?” I asked her.
“I miss my mom a lot, from time to time,” she said quietly.

“What does it feel like, missing her?”
“It’s like an emptiness,” she said after a pause, “a deep ache from her absence. It feels almost primordial. She passed away when I was thirteen. We were so close physically—we cuddled all the time. She was sick for ten years before she died, and she was often tired from chemotherapy. She’d nap a lot, and I’d lie next to her. That became our thing, our main way of being together.
We never really had an adult relationship. It was always just a mother and her little child. I can’t say I miss our conversations because most of our bond was nonverbal. But I miss the cuddles.”

“It’s been eleven years since she passed. Do you still miss her as intensely?”
“April is the hardest. That’s when she passed. The temperature, the rain, the smell of spring—it all brings her back. The memories are strongest then, and so is the pain.”