I’ve been so busy I haven’t had much time to write. It’s funny how when someone dies, the first few weeks, months, you think of them all the time. They’re always on your mind no matter what you’re doing. Then as time passes, you still think about them but not at every moment of the day anymore. Suddenly you’re just doing the dishes, or walking the dog, or a song comes on and you begin to think of them again. Usually it’s a happy memory, and so it’s easy to continue on with your day but every once in a while you’re overcome with sadness and you have to take a second to step out of sight, breathe and even have a little cry.

Tonight I’m anxious about life in general, and right now I miss my mom more than I’ve missed her since she’s been gone. I’ve been working a lot, keeping myself busy..if I have too much downtime I find myself really just struggling with my grief, so I keep my chin up and I work. Usually it works, but in the quiet moments of the night, as I listen to the fan whirring and the rattling of my bedroom windows: I’m thinking about her and about life after loss in general. The delicate intricacies of living a “normal” life when you’ve lost one of the most important people in your world.

I think that we forget how fragile, and vulnerable our parents can be. I find that as I get older, as I navigate losing my mom at a young age, I see so much of the hurt in my fathers life. He is not only processing the loss of the love of his life, but he’s also processing every single thing that’s happened in his life up to the present. Just as my sisters and I are processing the loss of our mother, we are processing losing the innocence of our youth, learning to face tragedy whilst still navigating our own loves and lives.

Learning to love after loss is hard. My sisters and I are young, we have so much life to live but as the token single one, I tend to think I have a different perspective these days. My youngest sister has dated the same guy for the last 4 years, he knew my mom and can help her keep the memory alive..my twin started dating her boyfriend earlier this year, the loss of my mother was still so fresh, she’s able to keep her memory of my mother alive by talking about our lives up to this point with her boyfriend..and whilst he never met her it seems as though he understands the gravity of how deeply we miss her, and how much we loved her. Yet as I begin to navigate MY dating world, I fear I will meet a man too late to keep my mother’s memory alive. Whilst she will live on in my heart, and through memories we share with each other, I fear that IF I have kids some day (Cause who knows if I really want them these days); my memories of her won’t be as strong because I haven’t had someone to share them with. Maybe I’m crazy. I know that I’m young, and everything happens with time, but right now, I’m fearful that I won’t find someone who will cherish the memories of my mother as much as we cherished her. Regardless of whether I have kids or not, I truly hope that I never lose the memories I have of her. As hard as they may be to remember in the moment, I hope I never lose the fleeting memories I get, during songs she loved, whilst sipping drinks that got her drunk way too easily, or taking bites of her favorite foods. These are the things that we really miss most when someone we love is gone.