Acclaim

acclaim \uh-KLEYM\, verb:
to welcome with loud approval; praise highly

(A claim. On you. On me.)

This is the second time I've gone to visit you, and I don't know if I can do it again. You stared out the window this time. Set in your wheelchair, frail and hunched, the gray shawl across your shoulders that Mama made. You were so still, I worried. The only assurance I had was the rise and fall of your shoulders. You wouldn't even look at me. I talked to you and you sighed. Your eyes never left the outdoors. I wonder if you were actually looking at anything, or just simply not looking at me.
Janet suggested I write you this letter. She can't understand, but rather than argue I've set myself down at this paper to do what she has said. She means well and I can't deny that this might be just what I need. If you decide to read it, that's up to you, but I hope you will. I hope you have gotten this far. Because what I came those times to tell you, what I had hoped to tell you, is that we were all proud of you. Yes, proud. But you have to understand that we couldn't express it. He's dead. He's dead now. A life is gone. But you are still here.
Please come home, ma. Please come home. The bed and his ghost are gone.