My mom passed away on Sunday evening.

I’ve written those words down a dozen times now, and they still don’t feel… I don’t know. They feel real, but they don’t feel real.

She’s still my first pinned contact. Still the first person I want to turn to and share a laugh. I keep seeking her out for advice only to remember that her passing is the reason I need it.

My mom was sick for over a year, and I’ve spent all of 2022 missing the way things used to be—but I never actually thought she would leave us like this. Not this way. Not shortly before Christmas, her birthday, and the new year.

As a writer, I take great pains to avoid clichés and cringe-worthy quotes and phrases. But when I try to sum up everything my mother means to me, all I hear are tsunami-level waves slamming into the emptiness in my brain, followed by a series of angsty quotes I got from Tumblr in 2013.

If you’d told me ten years ago, when my grandmother passed, that I would be losing my mother, I would be a doctor. Zero question. I would’ve done absolutely anything to save her.

Hell, if you’d told me one year ago that this would happen, I would’ve at least pushed harder for her to seek treatment.

But I’m not a doctor, and she didn’t want to discuss this. At all. So much of this season is guesswork because, as she told me in July, she “wasn’t leaving” our family.

I can’t change the events of the last five months, and writing about them (again) won’t make me or my loved ones feel better… but I can write about the good times.

My mom was this blog’s biggest cheerleader, but that’s only one of the many reasons she was the best. So, in the absence of an operational time machine, I give you these stories from my heart. All true. Very short. Some moments I want to remember when she feels far away.

A Beautiful Mess

A few years ago, right around the holidays, I sat on the edge of my bed and texted my mom the news: he just wasn’t that into me.

Two minutes later, she walked into my room, phone raised in shock. “This is not what I was expecting,” she said.

And then I burst into tears.

She gave me a hug, then laid down on the opposite side of my bed. For hours, we just talked, while the clock ticked past midnight. I think I went through all seven stages of grief.

“Maybe he didn’t mean it like that.”

“I can’t believe he’d say that to me.”

“Maybe he didn’t understand what I was trying to say.”

“I don’t want to work tomorrow. Or ever again.”

My mom was there for all of it, reminding me of my innate worth, strength, intelligence, and capacity to move on from heartbreak.

Her presence alone was of great comfort to me, but I was still teary when she got up to sleep in her own bed. “I can’t leave you while you’re crying,” she said as she moved toward the door. “Smile. You look beautiful.”

Part of the Dance

When I was a junior in high school and dancing pre-professionally, I developed tendinitis in my Achilles. At one time, wearing pointe shoes was the rough equivalent of drilling screws into both ankles and attempting to run.

This was around the time my mom discovered Ashley Black’s FasciaBlaster.

She used to set up a home spa in her bedroom and invite me to lie still for half an hour while she blasted the bound-up fascia in my calf muscles. I think it was excruciating for both of us. Any day, she could have assessed the damage and decided, “You know what sounds nice? Not paying for dance classes anymore.”

But she didn’t say that. Instead, she kept blasting between my acupuncture sessions so I could keep doing what I loved.

Later, when I developed adult acne, she was the first person to suggest that it might be stress-related. Over the following couple of years, she was a fervent supporter of my healing process, working around my stringent diet and hyping me up when my efforts felt futile.

If she had let me, I would have supported her return to health in every way I know how. Wherever she is now, I’m glad she knows that.

This is for You

I never told her—because I wanted it to be a surprise—but my first novel is dedicated to my mom. It’s also dedicated to my dad, who will find out when he reads this post. I’m not waiting for “someday” anymore; I want people to know what they mean to me.

My mom read a very early draft of the book, then read the most current draft at the beginning of last year. Over the course of a few months, we went through it chapter by chapter. She told me what she liked, what was confusing, and where she wanted more action—as a person who did not particularly enjoy fantasy.

I’ll never forget when she turned to me and said, “I took it for granted how much I liked this character from the minute you introduced him. It feels like he’s been in the story the whole time. All your characters are like friends.”

That’s the highest praise I’ve ever received regarding this book.

Always

There are other, smaller moments that feel so big in my head. Times when we made eye contact in a crowded room and grinned because we were thinking the same thing. Times when I asked her to repeat how she and my dad finally got together after years of knowing each other. Mornings when she randomly decided to make blueberry muffins and complained that they weren’t quite right while my brothers and I stuffed our faces.

She gave the best hugs. Wrapped the prettiest gifts. Sang totally out of tune until everyone loosened up and laughed.

You often had to beg her to give you advice, but once she did, you had actionable next steps. She was great with the tedious stuff—accounting, editing, making website updates.

She made the best apple pie.

My mom and I could argue a point until we forgot what we were talking about, but I never doubted her love for me, and I am at peace having gotten to express my love for her—at the end and many, many times before that.

If I Could Live Forever

To say that western culture is worried about death is an unfortunate understatement.

We are afraid of it, mystified by it, and often refuse to acknowledge it at all until it’s staring us in the face.

I, for one, never imagined what it would be like to lose my mom, let alone in my early twenties. I wanted her at my wedding and running around with my children, and, in the same way I figured she’d read my first published novel, I had no reason to believe she wouldn’t get to do those things.

But over the last several days, I have seen, heard, and felt her in… everything. I think of her (always), and she is here, with me. I talk to her, and if I listen closely, she responds.

Not how she used to. Nothing will ever be like that.

But in moments when I miss her (all of them), I am consistently reminded of her abiding presence and love.

Death is nothing like I thought it would be, and it’s far more transitory—even celebratory—than I ever could have imagined. I miss her hugs, yes, but after a year of goodbyes, I feel as though my mother has, inexplicably, returned to me.

Soul Time

I write to you today from my grandpa’s house in snowy Maine. This is the place where I feel closest to my grandmother, and now, I feel my mom here, too.

There’s a picture of her that hangs above my bed, a testament to her days as a competitive skier. If ever I’ve felt the presence of angels overhead, I felt them last night.

I cry, rage, and zone out—and when I come back, she is still here. She will always be here, in my heart.

Hi, Mom

This isn’t even a quarter of what I want to say about my mother. But I can sum up the rest in a caption I wrote on Monday, after a trip to the shore (pictured above):

I think I came here to say goodbye to you, but instead, you said hello.

The wind was throwing salt water into my face, indistinguishable from my tears. I was wearing your winter coat, and still, I was freezing.

But when I said to the ocean, “I love you,” I felt that love ripple back to me.

And when I whispered to the sunset, “I love you,” I felt that same love wash over me.

Even the sand, stuck to my damp shoes, felt heavy with a love that was rejoicing.

I came to call you home to us, but you were already here, with me.

Comfort and Joy

If you are grieving this holiday season, you are not alone. I really appreciated this post from @yogastudiosatya on Instagram.

Though I don’t feel merry, I am acutely aware of my mom’s joy and love.

Everything comes back to that, doesn’t it?

“What is grief, if not love persevering?” – WandaVision