12/20/2025
Two Years.
Today marks two years since my mother took her last breath.
For a long time, I looked fine.
I acted fine.
But every single day has been a quiet battle.
Grief doesn’t always look like tears.
Sometimes it looks like functioning.
Sometimes it looks like smiling.
Sometimes it looks like getting through the day while your heart is still learning how to beat without its anchor.
The first year broke me open.
I swung wildly between wanting to quit life altogether—sell my house, disappear overseas, live on a beach somewhere far from memories—
to barely having the strength to get out of bed.
The second year was different.
Heavier in a quieter way.
I began walking through a home that was left to me.
Not just a house—but a lifetime.
My mother’s life.
My father’s life.
Their love, their choices, their sacrifices.
I learned to take ownership of the gift they left behind, one drawer, one box, one memory at a time—
trying to figure out who I am inside of all that they were.
I still remember that long hallway.
The walk to my mother’s hospital room.
Each step knowing what was coming, and still not ready.
I remember standing there as she took her last breath and saying to her,
“It started out with the two of us.
We came on this long journey to California together…
and now it is the two of us again.”
She was receiving her wings.
And now—
now I understand something I couldn’t then.
My wings were never meant only for protection.
They were meant for flight.
I carry my grief with me.
I carry her with me.
And even on the days it still hurts to breathe, I am learning—slowly, imperfectly—how to fly.
