Grief cracked my world open. This is what spilled out.
My World Changed and So Did I
I used to think I knew what pain was.
I thought it was the sting of rejection, the ache of disappointment, or the hollow feeling when someone walks away. But those were tremors. The day I lost my daughter was an earthquake. The kind that splits time in half: before and after.
It didn’t just hurt. It rearranged everything.
That day wasn’t just a date on the calendar. It was the end of who I had been and the beginning of someone I never asked to become.
It Was My Birthday
That’s the cruel part, isn’t it?
Some people get cake and candles. I got a phone call that shattered my reality.
I can still hear the ring. I can still feel my stomach drop before I even picked up. Some part of me already knew. They say a mother always knows, but I didn’t want to be right. I wanted to stay in the five seconds before I answered — where my daughter was still alive and the sun outside still felt warm.
She had been hit by a drunk driver.
She didn’t make it.
And in that moment, neither did I. Not really.
Grief Didn’t Knock — It Kicked the Door In
People talk about grief like it’s a visitor.
Something that arrives in black clothes, whispers condolences, and eventually packs up and leaves. But grief didn’t visit me — it moved in, rearranged the furniture, painted the walls black, and broke all the windows.
I didn’t eat for days. I couldn’t sleep. I forgot how to breathe.
My body kept going, but I wasn’t in it.
I floated through the hours in a fog, looking for my daughter in dreams and waking up in tears.
And yet the world kept turning.
The mail still came. The dishes still got dirty. People still asked, “How are you?” with the expectation that I would lie and say, “Okay.”
But I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t anything. I was hollow.
Losing Her Was Losing Me
There are no words big enough for that kind of loss.
No label. No category. When a child dies, there isn’t just a hole — there’s an unraveling. The threads that once made up who you were come undone. You’re no longer a mother in the way you once were. You’re no longer a woman who can celebrate birthdays without flinching.
You become a question mark. A living contradiction.
Still breathing. Still here. But also… not.
People around me didn’t know what to say. So they said the wrong things, or nothing at all. Some disappeared. Some whispered about how long it had been, as if grief came with a return policy. As if I should’ve "moved on" by now.
Moved on to where?
There’s no finish line in grief. There’s only survival.
What Survived
Eventually, something shifted.
Not because I was strong. Not because time healed me (it didn’t). But because I had no choice.
I had a granddaughter to raise. A husband who still held me at night. A life that demanded something of me, even if I had nothing to give. So I showed up. I made banana bread. I folded laundry. I smiled when it felt like a betrayal.
I found tiny ways to live inside my pain — not around it, not over it. Inside it.
And little by little, I realized this truth:
I was never going to go back to who I was.
But maybe I could honor her by becoming someone new.
[Insert Image: A dragonfly resting on a hand, with golden light in the background — a symbol of transformation and fragile beauty.]
The Dragonfly Came
Three days after my dream, I saw one.
A real dragonfly — floating in the air like a secret. I hadn’t seen one in years. But there it was, resting on a leaf, as if it had waited just for me.
In that moment, I felt her.
I don’t care what anyone says about signs or logic.
I believe in what I felt.
And what I felt was this: she was still with me.
Just not in the way I wanted.
The World Is Still Split
The world is still divided: Before and After.
But I don’t hate both sides anymore.
I carry them together. Like scars and strength.
Like love and loss.
I’ve learned that being “okay” doesn’t mean the pain is gone. It just means the pain has found a place to live inside me — without running the whole house.
There are still hard days. There always will be.
But there are also moments where I feel her laugh in the wind, her hands in the dough, her warmth in the sunrise.
Moments where I know I’m still her mother, even here.
Even now.
If You’ve Had a Day Like Mine
If your world has been cracked open —
If you are living in your own After —
I want to say this to you:
You are not broken beyond repair.
You are not weak for hurting.
You do not have to rush your healing to make others comfortable.
You don’t move on. You move with.
And some days, that movement is enough.
[Insert Image: A winding path through a quiet forest — symbolizing the unknown road of grief, still ongoing, but filled with light.]
Still Here
I’m still here.
Breathing. Crying. Loving.
And so are you.
If no one has told you lately — I’m proud of you.
You’re doing better than you think.
Even on the day everything changed… you didn’t disappear.
And that means there’s still hope.
Still healing.
Still you.