Dear Nanny,
You are on my mind a lot, especially since your birthday last week. I can't believe you weren't here with us. It still seems unreal. Somedays, I wonder if I am just living in a constant nightmare and then I wake up and realize this is reality - you are gone and I am still here without you. It's not that I don't love the people I have here, but you are the one I needed to talk, hug, cry with, and laugh with.
It was you I wanted to call yesterday when I made it home in the heaviest rain since my panic attack in February 2019, nearly a year and a half ago now. I thought of you the second I parked under my carport. You'd be proud. You would have been worried too with how much PawPaw watches the weather. But, overall, you would have been thrilled to hear my safe return home. Plus, that I was only shaking a little. My anxiety wasn't as bad in months or years past. Which is a relief in my book. I just wish we could have talked on the phone for hours yesterday as I told you all about it. How I couldn't focus on anything but the puddling rain as Dustin and I talked on the phone during my short drive home. The wind was blowing so hard, water was pooling on each road I turned on. I kept going. I went really really slow - I mean like a turtle. I wasn't going anywhere very fast, but seeing out my windshield was an absolute joke. Literally even the wipers, on the fastest setting, didn't help much. Thank goodness I don't live far from work anymore; I probably couldn't have made it across the river with how hard it was to see. But, I made it to my house okay and that's what matters. I know you'd be proud.
In other news...my book's publication has been pushed back to the very last week of December. Not only will this be my first Christmas with you, but I'll have to be happy when I know I won't feel it. I can't even begin to imagine Christmas without you and your cooking. Or your eagerness to open presents. Just know, you'll forever be in my heart. You are the one I want to share my launch with. I know you'll be smiling down from Heaven as I hold my book in my hands for the first time. This one's for you, Nanny.
I love and miss you, my sweet angel.
Until Next Time,
Em