Dear Mom in Heaven: I find strength in the memories.

It’s been almost a year and a half since mom passed. This is an eternal pain of losing a mother is the deepest kind. I never imagined it would feel like this. I wanted to start journaling the grief journey as a therapeutic way of expressing all the feels.

I mean it when I tell you please don’t waste time with those you love. Time passes us by, and we will soon be gone. Mom was a beautiful soul and therefore, she left me with beautiful memories. I have not met a more patient, forgiving, all giving mother like her. Not once did she deny her help, her love, or her understanding. She always let us know that no matter what we did, she had unconditional love for us.

Tears and moments of sporadic crying comes in waves. I am ‘ok’ and then at the sound of a song or in the presence of her favorite things, I am not.

I started meditating about 6 months before she passed away. I believe in my heart that this was not coincidental. It somehow started preparing me for heart wound of losing my mother. I sit daily in the quiet and I listen for her voice and glimpses of her face. I feel her presence often and refuse to believe that it isn’t true. We are not just human bodies. There is an essence, a presence, a soul that lives on when we pass. I have become more spiritual than I have ever been. I often ‘hear’ her, in the form of thoughts, telling me to keep on going and that she would not want me breaking down in pain. She didn’t teach me that. She taught me to be strong and resilient. I hope that in time my own kids think the same of me. What is life meant for if not to live in harmony with those whom you love.

Today I choose to be calm in the pain and to rejoice in the memories. She would not have it any other way and know it. I am more inclined to honor her through the strength she taught me than to fall apart. I think of her daily and each day I remind myself of this. If you are going through the same loss, I hope you find comfort in friends, family, or the memories alone.