Notes on Grief on What Would Have Been my Mother’s 52nd Birthday
2 min readMay 8, 2019
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- It’s been four years. How surreal it is to be grieving and moving on at the same time. To constantly remember your great loss in the middle of your happiest moments. On some days, it feels like I am moving through life in a daze. I ask myself, how are you able to thrive in spite of what has happened?
- I struggle with the guilt of moving on. Should I be feeling this happy? Shouldn’t I be distraught for life? Am I betraying her memory by moving on?
- Nobody tells you how fleeting memories are. I struggle with my memory and the guilt of forgetting. I have no videos of her. On some nights, I lie in the dark trying to remember what her voice sounded like. I try to recreate her laughter in my head. I picture her face in my mind’s eye. I struggle to see her in motion, alive, still with me, still with us.
- I know that a time will come when I will completely lose all of these memories, and it hurts to know. I wish I could take all these fading memories and make them into a video I can watch over and over. At least, a video will not fade.
- It’s not the notable dates that hurt the most — the birthdays, mother’s day, death anniversaries. No. Not anymore, at least. It hits the hardest on the most random days, while I’m doing the most random things. Like watching One Day at a Time, or cooking a meal, or reading a book.
- I try to imagine her reaction whenever anything big happens in our lives. What would she say? How would she react? How would she feel? Would she be happy?
- I wish I got to say goodbye.
