To The One That Held My Heart

The Sweetest Mother's Day Gift!

I’m writing this now because I didn’t have the strength to face you. I knew that once I saw you again, tears will soon fall. I’m currently conflicted — my aching heart wants you to see this, while my brain is deciding against it. However, I’ve had these words bottled up inside me for the longest time, and they’ve been begging to be let out.

It’s about time I relieve this heart of the pain from the past.

Over three years ago, my life changed. I just started my very first job. Naturally, I was shy. I didn’t talk to anyone for the first few weeks. Soon enough, I became familiar with the new surroundings, and that’s when I met you. In the summer of that year, I came down with the flu. As I lay on my deathbed for three excruciatingly long days, my phone would not stop ringing. Agitated, I picked up the phone and with my lifeless voice, demanded to know who was calling. That worried man was you. A weak smile crawled upon my face for a moment as I listened to your voice, making sure I was alright.

A few weeks passed and our conversations became deeper. More importantly, so did our friendship. There was no time in the day that we didn’t share a laugh. Ultimately, we became inseparable. Soon after, you professed your true feelings for me, and I knew there was no way out of it. I became the blooming rose that brought life to your dreary, and you, became the sun that brought light to my life. Together, we existed in perfect harmony, but helpless when separated.

As time went on, other opportunities fell on your lap one at a time, while I was busy with school and thanking the Gods for my own blessings. Slowly, our lives parted ways. Sweet good mornings and tireless goodnights became less and less frequent. Conversations started to digress more and more. We became more frustrated with life, and threatened to leave the relationship we built from dust.

This continued for months, until you and I came back to where we started, as if we were strangers once again. There was nothing but tears as I laid in bed every night, reminiscing, cherishing all the good memories we had as I tried to mask the pain that was embedded in my heart. No goodbyes were uttered. It’s as if it was all a dream.

In the midst of all this, I wanted to thank you for everything. For giving me your heart, though for a short period of time, and for taking care of mine. Thank you for the smiles you’ve given me when I thought I no longer had a reason to smile. I want to apologize for doing that one thing I promised I would never do — and that is to leave you.

I guess this is the end. I apologize for not being able to say any of these things to you in person. I wish I could but I can’t afford to see you at this moment.

Maybe someday.

So God Made a Grandmother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Order Now!

broken relationships

Jeanne Nimo

Jeanne M. Nimo is a college student from Southern New Jersey who has a passion for learning. She is in the process of earning her two degrees -- for both Nursing and English Literature. When she's not working her day job as a Pharmacy Technician, she can be found lurking at a nearby Starbucks, sipping on seasonal caffeinated beverages, trying to conquer the world -- one profession at a time. She is also a publishing artist under 451 Press, whose debut poetry collection is set to be released on March 2016.

I Miss Having Parents

In: Grief

Grown daughter posing between smiling parents

I have been living with the ache of loss for so long that I truly don’t remember what it feels like not to carry it. Sometimes it rests quietly beneath my ribs, dormant and almost polite. Other times it rises without warning—on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a coffee line—and cuts straight through me. Today, it was a song. I was waiting for my coffee when “Pictures of You” by The Cure drifted through the café speakers. I hadn’t heard it in 20 years. In my twenties, it meant heartbreak—young love unraveling, relationships ending before they were...

Keep Reading

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

In: Grief

Nobody tells you that when you lose a sibling, your entire childhood flashes before your eyes. There’s no better witness to what you experienced growing up than that one person who was standing nearby for all of it. And when they’re gone, a part of that childhood and a part of that story goes with them, because it was only ever known between the two of you. There’s no last chance to say, “Remember when?” or to laugh about the things that made you laugh to tears together, a million times at the kitchen table. There’s no last conversation about...

Keep Reading

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

In: Grief

I survived losing my father after his long, grueling battle with cancer. It was one of the most difficult seasons of my life. I had a front row seat to watch cancer pick him apart piece by piece. When you lose a parent, you lose a part of yourself. They say time heals all wounds, but you never stop missing the good ones, and there are days when it feels like it just happened. By the grace of God, I survived, but I will always miss my father. Then, almost a decade later, I lost the career that helped me...

Keep Reading

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

In: Grief

During the weeks we cared for my grandmother in hospice, survival mode felt necessary. There were medications to track. Visitors to update. Logistics to manage. I remember sitting on the couch that served as my makeshift bed and listening to the rhythmic hissing and puffing of the oxygen machine one night. While my mom showered off the day, I texted my sister updates and sent my husband a quick message of love. I could still smell the lavender candle we had lit earlier in the day to mask medical scents. The house was quiet, but my mind wasn’t. I was...

Keep Reading

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

In: Grief

Woman's hands holding beautifully wrapped small gift

It has been two months and nine days since my mom passed away. The first several weeks were spent on the details and logistics of planning her service. She passed in December, so once her beautiful service had passed, I busied myself with the preparations for Christmas. By mid-February, I finally began to process some feelings of grief on a deeper level. The quiet of this less-busy season is allowing the grief to soak in a bit more. Not the big things; not the obvious, grief-heavy reminders that stop me in my tracks. Instead, I’ve been noticing the small things....

Keep Reading

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

In: Grief

It’s been 10 years since I last heard my mother’s voice. Ten years since I could pick up the phone and ask a question I already knew the answer to, just to hear her say it anyway. Ten years since someone loved me in that very specific, unconditional, occasionally annoying way that only a mother can. My mom died in 2015. And while “passed away” sounds softer, more polite, the truth is that she left. Suddenly. Permanently. With no forwarding address. She was gone. What I’ve learned in the decade since is not what I expected. I thought the biggest lesson...

Keep Reading

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

In: Grief, Marriage

The year 2025 began as a quiet storm. I was slipping into the fog of depression while navigating the early chaos of perimenopause, and some days simply getting out of bed felt impossible. My thoughts felt dark and heavy, my body unfamiliar, my energy nonexistent, and my moods uncontrollable. And yet, in the haze, there was one constant: my husband. He noticed the subtle shifts I barely acknowledged. The sighs, the quiet retreats into myself, the moments I almost broke. Instead of judgment or frustration, he offered presence. He held space for my struggle without trying to “fix” it, and...

Keep Reading

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

In: Grief

Becoming a mother has a way of bringing old wounds back to the surface, even ones you believed had healed. I never imagined grief would surface so strongly in my motherhood journey. I thought it was something you carried silently, something that faded with time. But becoming a mother felt like my loss rising to its feet and saying, I’m still here There are moments when I reach for my phone to call my mom, only to be met with the reminder that I can’t. I want to ask her if what I’m feeling is normal, if the exhaustion softens,...

Keep Reading

Memories of My Grandma Live On

In: Grief

Be intentional. Take the picture. Create memories. Because even when we think we have all the time in the world, one day it will slip away. Sadly, this is exactly what happened to my grandma and me. While I was growing up, my dad and his parents had a strained relationship, and they were estranged for about the first five years of my life. Thankfully, they reconciled, and my grandparents and I finally had the opportunity to establish a much-anticipated relationship. Though I was never able to form the same closeness with them as I had with my maternal grandparents,...

Keep Reading

Netflix Captured What I’ve Treasured for 17 Years: My Daughter’s Room Exactly How She Left It

In: Grief, Motherhood

Girl's bedroom with posters on the wall and toys on the bed

It was a Sunday evening. I was alone, scrolling through Netflix, searching for something, anything, to fill the quiet. Then I stumbled upon a documentary I had no clue existed, called All the Empty Rooms. After reading the description, my heart immediately went out to all the parents who contributed to this film, and to the man behind it, Steve Hartman, whose compassionate heart radiates in every frame. One statement he said hit me like a freight train: “What we need to talk about is the child that’s not here anymore.” Period. Powerful truth. Curiously, I started watching. Then I...

Keep Reading

Milk Drunk in Public

Kids

Milk Drunk in Public

Am I Skinny, Mama?

Faith

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Jeanne Nimo

I Miss Having Parents

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

Memories of My Grandma Live On

Netflix Captured What I’ve Treasured for 17 Years: My Daughter’s Room Exactly How She Left It

Get It Now

So God Made a Mother

To The One That Held My Heart

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

I Miss Having Parents

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

Memories of My Grandma Live On

Netflix Captured What I’ve Treasured for 17 Years: My Daughter’s Room Exactly How She Left It

Previous Post

Next Post

You May Also Like