By Jessica Grillo 
So when the sun rises one morning and it hits you that I am forever gone, I hope the love I had left you with is more than enough to ease your pain.
Some days it will feel like she just died and the amount of pain in your heart will make you want to shut down and never leave your bed. You’ll see how much worse your father has it. You’ll see how six months has done nothing for him. He still walks around in a daze. He still misses her and feels the loss down to his bones. You want to take his grief away, but you can’t find the words to do it. Every single thing you could possibly say has already been said, so you learn to listen instead of speak.
People will stop asking about how you’ve been because they’ve already moved on. Your loss is more unbearable than theirs. Losing a sister doesn’t compare to losing a mother. Losing a friend does nothing to compare to losing your wife of 54 years. People will ask only if you bring it up to them because they’re just trying to be nice and tiptoe around your volatile emotions. All you want to do is bring her up but no one wants to hear about it anymore. They didn’t lose what you lost.
Your days start to become more routine, normal even, but they’re not really happy. You’re just not happy six months after you lose your mom to cancer. You’re not happy about losing your best friend. You know something as simple such as a picture can bring you back to that dark place. And that terrifies you. You know that the bottom could drop at any moment. You keep everyone at arm’s length, afraid they’ll leave you like she did. And you know how that would leave you in a heap on the floor sobbing uncontrollably.
Sometimes you cry on the way to work, yet you fake a smile so no one knows you were crying. You know no one could understand your pain. So you gather that strength and move forward.
Six months after you lose your mom, you envy the women who still have their moms. You get angry with the people who take their moms for granted. Because you’d give anything just to hug her one last time. You still wonder why it happened and there is no logical explanation. You doubt God but you know He has a plan. Your pain has a purpose.
People avoid bringing her up to you like she’s some sort of toxin. But she’s not. You want the world to know her. You know that talking is the only way through the grief.
And then one day, the tides turn. You’ll finally be able to pick up the pieces and rejoin the living. You’ll laugh with friends and start to let people in. You try to push yourself to enjoy the little things you once loved, and you’re getting there. You listen to her voicemails a little less. You stop calling her phone to hear her voice. You put away the photo albums, but you can’t bring yourself to throw out the Diet Coke she still had sitting in the fridge all those months ago. Right now, it’s all about the little changes and not the big ones. You know that it will take time.
You find comfort in her memory while still longing for her laugh, for her warm embrace, for her to tell to the world she’s proud of you. You long for her phone calls, her smile, her love for you. And in those difficult moments, when all you want is to hear her say it, you tell her out loud how much you miss her, hoping and praying she hears you.
You know that even tho she’s gone, you will always hold her in your heart, for her love for you was so great that you can still feel it every day.
Originally published on the author’s blog
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