It was a strange new years tradition, really. I'd never quite understood why I'd repeated it year after year especially given the dubious origin of the practice. My father liked to say that some distant family member, singing drunkenly, had been unfortunate enough as to accidentally summon some spirit that needed appeasing once a year. He'd always wink conspiratorially at me afterwards and I'd always felt special, as though I were the shared keeper of some great family legacy. On one occasion my mother had wandered into my bedroom during the story and had suggested, quite dryly, that perhaps the culprit had been a not-so-distant member of the family. She'd given a pointed look at my father, who'd shrugged and smiled. She'd shaken her head, exasperated, but the story of the drunken-spirit-summoning-family-member had remained at the heart of the story until quite some time later.

I never knew why she couldn't tell me she loved me
I was a good daughter
I made her breakfast in bed
I kissed her flushed cheeks when she was ill and droopy
I danced for her in the living room and down the street and through the water
I breathed to make her happy
I told her I loved her a million times a day, and she would smile
She told me it back
But never truthfully
"Do you love me mom?" "Don't be ridiculous, of course."
Or
You look so pretty today with your teeth brushed!
Or
I loved your poem last night
But never I 
Love you
Alone
And the worst part is I can't leave
Because I love her

Explaining the Unexplained