Originally Published: October 24, 2023

Dear Mom,

25 days without you. It feels like 25 years.

Reminders of you are everywhere. In your miraculous artwork, which I’ve plastered in every free space of my house. I feel so guilty for not properly appreciating how damn talented you were when you were here. But wow, Mom, you were incredible. You are incredible. And I’m so grateful that your art lives on.

Like the quilt of a strong woman — you? — that now hangs next to my bed. It’s the first thing I see when I wake up. The last thing I see when I go to sleep. I feel your spirit in it, gazing at me, encouraging me — pleading with me — to go on. She seems to whisper, “Just one breath at a time.” The message, the idea, shatters and repairs me.

There are moments when I need you so much. When the missing and longing are so acute my chest empties like a popped balloon, until I’m gasping for air. Like last weekend, when Jack got too much bathwater in his ear and wouldn’t stop crying. Or when Olivia threw up at the apple orchard, but I’d left my purse in the car.

The times when you would’ve swooped in with all the perfect solutions and magical supplies and would’ve made it okay — for the kids. For me.

It’s at those times — when everything is so obviously not okay — that the pain of your absence is so heavy I nearly sink to the ocean floor.

Mom, you were a primary pillar of my life. The foundation I constructed my house around. And that house — the one I grew and flourished in — has now crumbled. Most days, I feel totally adrift. A boat at sea with no anchor. A leaf blowing in the wind.

But here’s what I’m realizing, Mom: I have to build a new house. A house partially assembled from grief. Because your loss is now a defining feature of my personhood. It’s not a building block I want, but it’s mine all the same.

And I have to take all my love and pain and untangle the complex mass, to create a new sanctuary that honors your beautiful soul. Your unconditional love. A space with room for my anguish and your joy.

You are gone.

But my love is not — and that cuts so deep.

You are gone.

But your love is not — and that soothes my broken pieces.

You are gone.

And now, I must trust in love and grief and you, to show me how to build anew.