Losing Your Mom Will Change You In Ways You Never Imagined

Losing your mom will wreck you.

It breaks you and changes you in ways you never could have imagined.

You’ll find yourself keeping her a secret because talking about her hurts everyone else, even though not talking about her hurts you so much. You want to say her name, you want someone to ask you about her, you want to talk about her, but it feels like you are the only one.

It’s as if you’ll lose yourself while you are standing right there. You’ll look for yourself in old pictures and try to remember where that girl went, the person you were when she was still here, and wonder if you’ll ever get that person back.

Losing your mom will make you become a different wife, mom, sister, daughter, and best friend.

You’ll go from being the one who didn’t question much in life to the one who questions everything. Where is my mom? Where did she go? Why did it have to be my mom? Why did she have to go? Why didn’t we get to say goodbye? Why can’t she come for a visit? You won’t want it to have been anyone else’s mom, but you’ll wonder why yours had to die that way.

It will change the way you visit the doctor; sitting in the lobby there will be hard. You’ll think of her at every visit. You’ll wonder if this visit will be a bad one for you like it was for her. The paperwork will make you cry when it asks for emergency contacts or if your mom is living.

It will make that random corner on the bathroom floor become a place that houses so many memories. The place you held her head back when she was sick; the place you said countless prayers with no words while she sat on that floor by your side. Where you sat praying you could keep her for the night. The last place you held her hand.

It will make you realize that sometimes, friendships can’t withstand everything and losing your mom might be one of those things. You’ll learn that you will have to give people grace in the middle of your grief because that’s what a good friend does.

In losing your mom, you’ll find feeling alone is only temporary because others just like you will come out and say, “I’ve been there,” and, “I’m here for you now.”

In losing her, you will see the ugly side of this life. You’ll see the hurt and the grief and you won’t be able to unsee it ever again. But in that, you will find the helpers, the ones who love without conditions. You’ll find the ones who have experienced the same grief and are still out there finding the beauty in this life.

It will cause you to constantly search for her everywhere. You’ll search the clouds, old pictures, social media posts, the memories of her old friends, and even the crowds wherever you go. Even though you know she’s gone, your heart will still search for her, still keep trying to find her. You’ll want to put up missing person flyers and spread the word on social media to be on the lookout for her, too, but you can’t because she’s not that kind of missing person.

Losing your mom will wreck you in the most heartbreaking ways, but it’s in that mess of grief that you’ll find who you were made to be.

You’ll discover with the wrecking of your old self that came with losing your mom also came the unfolding of you, the you your mom always knew you would become even if she wasn’t there to see it.

This post originally appeared on Grief To Hope with Nikki Pennington