My dearest, most beloved Mother,
I cannot find words to describe the feelings in my heart as I pick up the pen to write this letter. My hands were shaking like the wings of a butterfly flying in a storm. Oh, Mother, how I wish you would be able read this letter with your own eyes! How I wish I could be able to send it, and then receive your reply! Now, as I'm writing every word, I look up, and over toward the window, as if expecting to see you standing outside and watching me. Now, it is already late at night, yet my heart cannot exit the state it is in right now to calm down and go to sleep. Now, the night sky is growing darker, and the clouds are covering the moon. And it is often at nights like this, when I think of you the most. How I wish I can still hear your lullabies, and feel your gentle hands patting me to sleep? All those dark and cold nights I've stayed awake calling for you, only to find out not long after, that you would never be able to come for me again...
My dearest Mother, how much better my life would be if you can be here with me now, to share my joys of everyday, and be a part of my every dinner party, every church mass, and every park walk? Father has already told me so much about you, but that is still far from enough! I need to get to you as a daughter knowing her mother, to have to cherish me when I'm happy, and to have you comfort me when I'm sad. Yet in this life, I can never have that chance. Oh, Mother, am I not the most miserable child in this world, one who cannot even know her own mother?
Now, my dear husband Marius has already gone to bed. We have just visited Father's grave this morning, and now I feel tired and even somewhat dreary. My sweet cat, Dormé, after her delicious tuna fish dinner, is now lying comfortably in her bed, playing with the pumpkin that Marius had brought home for our wonderful maid, Monique, to make a pie for Sunday. I hear the sound of the nightingale from outside my little house; her singing is making a whirlpool of melodies flowing round after round in my head. Nights like these make me feel alone sometimes, and there really are so much that I feel are things that I need to confide to a mother only, and no one else. Oh, Mother, if only you're here. What I wouldn't do to be able to be with you again, even if just for a little while?
I know that, no matter how many letters I write you, you will never be able to write back. But I'm sure, that somewhere, you can see me, and you can see them as well. There are so many things that I want to say to you, and writing them out actually makes me feel that I can tell you even more. This is only the very first one, and already I feel I can never write enough. So many things that have happened over the years that I want to tell you, and so many things I only want you alone to hear and know. I just feel I cannot say enough of how much I miss you, Mother, and how much I wish you can come back. Wherever you are, I only wish it is a better place. Along with Father, I can only wish you are both happy, and that you both can see me, although I cannot see you.
Read this letter, my dear Mother, and read all the letters that I shall be writing to you from now on. Writing to you will never make either of us lonely. Whenever I want to say something that a girl can only say to her mother, I will write them down in these letters. And when you read them, I hope they can warm your heart to see my handwriting and my words. With every word, I write out my deepest and purest love that a daughter can have for her mother, and with every letter, everything that is in my heart shall be expressed out on paper.
For now, Mother, I wish you good night. May Angels be accompanying you in your sleep, and may you feel that the heart of your daughter is somewhere near, loving you, and calling for you. For now, I want you to know, that I am very well, and I can only wish you can always be as happy as I am now. I love you most dearly, and in my heart, you forever have the strongest place.
Your most beloved daughter,
Cosette