Missing Mom

A grieving daughter finds unmistakable signs on a walk around her neighborhood.

- BY Celeste McCauley

IT WAS THE last thing I wanted to do: walk around my Brooklyn neighborhood on a hot and sticky July afternoon in search of a floor fan.

The air conditioning in my apartment had just conked out, and who knew when the super would get around to having it fixed. I was in no mood for any of it.

In truth, it was far more than the scorching sun that had me upset. The one-year anniversary of my mother's death was approaching, and I didn't know how I was going to handle it. She had died suddenly, after a late-stage cancer diagnosis. There'd been no time to prepare myself, if that was even possible, and over the past year I'd only begun to take in the reality that I'd never feel her close again.