When you’re a little girl, you dream of marriage, children, a career, and memories that you will cherish forever—and you want your mother by your side at all times.

Our mothers teach us how to live a life we will enjoy, but they never teach us how to live a life without them in it. Our mothers don’t tell us that one day they will not be here to answer the phone when we call or go on spontaneous dinner dates.

My mother never told me there will come a day when she will be gone and how bad it will hurt.

It hurts so bad my heart feels like it’s being ripped out of my chest.

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My mother passed away on September 14, 2021, after being in a medically induced coma to fight off COVID-19 pneumonia. For 17 days, my mother was in a coma. The last words I spoke to her were on August 28, 2021, “I love you, Mama. Your lungs need rest.”

She is at rest now with the Lord.

My mother was my best friend. My mother was my hero. My mother was the best mother and an even better grandmother.

Now she’s gone, and I can’t adjust to life without her . . . but I have no choice.

I have no choice but to continue on and live each day as my mother would want me to. I have two little girls looking up to me, and in their eyes, I am their best friend and their hero and I’m still here, so I need to cherish my time with them while I can.

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But it’s hard.

It’s hard to get up every single day and face a day without your mother. To take care of a household, children, pets, etc. when all I want to do is lie in the bed and drown in a sea of depression.

I can’t do that and I won’t do that because my family keeps me going.