Where She Still Lives.

My mother died a year ago today.
How is that possible?

How is it possible that I’ve spent 365 days missing her? That I haven’t heard her voice or held her hand in all that time?

Grief plays strange tricks with time. When you lose the person who made you—who held you, loved you, shaped you—time stops meaning what it used to. It stretches and collapses in unexpected ways. Some days crawl. Others disappear. And while everyone else seems to move forward seamlessly, you’re standing still. Watching. Carrying the weight of what’s no longer there.
Taking it all in.
Feeling every inch of it.
And asking, over and over: How?

How is the world still spinning?
How can it possibly keep turning without her in it?
I could have sworn she was the force behind it.
I could have sworn it was her all along.

That feeling stayed with me for a long time and sometimes, it still does.

I’ve learned that grief doesn’t end—it changes. It softens at the edges, even as it stays stitched into who you are. I still miss her in the quietest moments, in the places she filled with love. But I also feel her in the life I’m building around the missing. In the way I show up for others. In the things I write. In the small, everyday choices that somehow carry her fingerprint.

One year ago today, the world shifted. And yet, somehow, I’m still here. Living. Loving. Grieving. Healing.
And looking for her hoping that I find her again—again and again—even in the most unexpected places.

I miss her every day.