21 Letters – #19 Kathy after loss
for the woman who carries the unspeakable
I don’t have the words,
not really ...
because how could there be words
for this kind of grief?
For the loss of a light
you brought into this world
with your own body,
your own love?
I am a mother now,
and even with one –
just one -
I can’t imagine surviving
what you now wake up to every day.
If it were me,
if I had to say goodbye to my child
before the world was done knowing them,
I don’t know if I’d still be breathing.
But you ...
you are still here.
Not whole,
but still standing.
Your grief is vast,
an ocean with no shore in sight,
but you swim in it
for us.
You kept going
for her sisters -
for me,
for our older sister.
When the tide pulled at your ankles,
you anchored yourself in us.
And we, in turn,
will anchor you.
Because she isn’t gone,
not really.
She lives in the three of us:
her laugh echoes in our own,
her fire flickers in our stubbornness,
her grace in the way we hold one another
on the hard days.
She was made from us,
just as we were made from you.
And now we carry her.
Always.
We’ll keep her alive, Mom.
We’ll speak her name
in the quiet moments
and the loud ones, too.
We’ll make sure her light
never goes out.
We are each a piece of her,
just as she was
a piece of all of us.
And in those moments,
those sharp-edged days
when the grief feels too big,
too cruel,
too endless,
know that we will be there
to hold you.
We will remind you
that she lived a full,
bright,
beautiful life.
That she found joy
in places others might have overlooked.
That she knew
she was deeply,
fiercely loved.
Because of you.
Because you gave her that love
every single day she was here.
There’s no fixing this,
no silver lining.
But there is love.
And we will wrap you in it,
again and again,
until it holds like armor.
We carry her together,
Mom.
And in carrying her,
we carry you.