It started in the beginning of the month if I’m being completely honest. Yes I welcomed a decade worth of marriage, my 10 year anniversary with my husband. Yes we celebrated my baby boy’s sixth birthday. Yes we snuck in an extra date night because we could. And we needed it.

But that familiar, muddy, sludgy feeling of grief and sadness lives inside me, just under the surface of my collected composure, all year round. And in June, the tough exterior erodes and my grief is left naked and exposed for what feels like the entire world to see, yet now, almost nobody notices.

The hardest part for me 7 years later, is that I honestly feel… fine. I feel like I’ve gained a mountain in perspective. A river of gratitude runs through my every day life. I feel like I’ve collected a million moments of heart bursting simplicity. Like the way the sunlight dances on the water in my pool around dinner time. The smell of my house when I walk in the door. Finding the perfect music station to calm me and not overstimulate me. Noticing the subtle changes in my kids features every morning when they wake up, seemingly overnight. The time a perfect snowflake fell into my mitten this last winter and how I was fascinated by the beauty of it. The birds singing. The bunnies that play in the yard and bring the kids so much joy. The nuances of my life are magical, and they have been for the past few years. I owe that all to the pain I endured in every single detail of 2016’s June.

And even though I feel like I’ve come to terms with no longer having my mother in my life – my heart, my soul, my brain, my body, still remembers her. And it longs for her. It longs to hear her voice, to feel her hugs, to have the calm and satisfaction of calling her every day and letting her do her motherly thing. The feeling after a good laugh together. I long for her still, and I imagine I always will. It almost feels foolish to continue writing a blog about this pain that became part of me. Not on June 24th, 2016, but during every single moment in between then and now.

Pain changes people, and I know it has changed me. In every way. And yet I’m still feeling annoyed that I still feel sad, and that’s a part of grief and moving on that nobody can talk about unless you’ve experienced it first hand. I don’t want to feel like I can’t get out of bed on certain days anymore in June. I don’t want to feel like my anxiety is bigger than my understanding of why I feel like this. I want to feel as fine as I do on the first warm spring day. Or when I’m having a great day with my kids. Or when my husband and I are laughing together in the kitchen at night. But my grief won’t allow that. I have no big takeaway from this, I’m truly just writing to get out of my horrible mood. My patience today is as thin as the day she died. My fuse is short. My mood sucks. I cried three times this morning, and couldn’t even bring myself to drink my coffee because the smell reminded me so much of her.

Tomorrow marks 7 years of her leaving this earth. And I think about her every day. She sends me signs and still shows me how powerful her love is. She reaches me from heaven as often as I’m willing to notice. She’s taught me so much in my life, and even more in the last seven years. I realize now more than I ever have before, that walking this earth is equal parts heaven and hell, and dare I even be an optimist and say more heaven than hell. I walk through life as a mother without a mother. And I still needed her. But God has sent me so many good people I never expected to meet. And these earth angels all bring a genuine goodness to my life. They love me, they love my kids, they love my husband. They show up for me. They show up for my kids. They show up for my husband. And they always lean in when I get quiet. They notice. They give. They support, encourage and appreciate me. They celebrate me, and motivate me. And while separately, they will never be my mother, collectively they help me, every day, get through. Even on the hardest days in June. I know how lucky I am to have what I have and I will never take the relationships I have for granted. My mama taught me that 👑

Seven years an Angel, and I still needed you 🩵