My beautiful boy would be 19

Nineteen. A number I have imagined so many times, wondering who Jack would be at 19… what he would look like, what would he be watching on his iPad, who would be his teachers, how many freckles would he have right now, what music would he choose to listen to and what would continue to make him laugh…

Grief has taught me many things but the share of today is that losing someone doesn’t mean losing the relationship. Jack is still woven into who I am, into the way I love, the way I see the world, and the way I notice the smallest gifts that are placed in my path.

I recently read Theo of Golden and there is a beautiful passage in the book that spoke to me…

But God, in His sublime goodness, has always sent others, mysterious others, to walk with us — prophets, preachers, friends, teachers, artists, storytellers, wives and husbands, children, songs, birds and rivers, even hardship and loss — to help us see clearly. They are ones who make our hearts burn within us, who call us out of our indifference, our lethargy, our death and defeat. They call us to be fully alive, or at least more alive than we were before we met them.

Maybe this is what it means to be “fully alive.” Not to avoid the pain of loving someone you can lose, but to love so deeply that their life changes the way you live the rest of yours.

Jack has taught me that joy and grief can coexist.

That a sunrise with coffee in hand is not just a sunrise and a cup of coffee.

I am braver about living. There is no “right” time.

I recognize every person I encounter has a story to share and if you listen closely a story to teach something.

Jack didn’t teach me to live because he died. He taught me to live because he lived.

Happy 19th birthday Jack ❤️

Forever my son.

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4 years further away, 4 years closer

As I lay my head to bed I often relay a message “another day without you Jack, another day”. And now it’s 4 years. “4 years without you, how did I get here?”

As I wake, sit and watch the sunrise… just about the exact moment you decided to take your last breath, I am reminded each day is yes one more day further into life without you but it’s also one more day further into getting to meet up with you again.

Grief is so interesting and messy. Everything tangled and braided and interwoven and webbed together. The love and the pain, the anger and joy, the shame and pride, the guilt and the honor. All of it. And again time. Time is mixed between another year, day, moment without you but also another year, day, moment closer to being with you.

So just like when I feel happiness and joy in my live I simultaneously experience you are missing. It’s always there. Joy and emptiness. Coexisting.

So on this anniversary I feel another year further away from you, yet another year closer to you. Sadness to joy. Pain to love. Grief, a constant mix of emotions.

Grief is a world where I live inside the braided emotion of love—love always there, with other feelings woven through it.

Today, I hate that I am writing from a place of longing for my son, four years after he’s gone. And yet, I love that I am learning how to miss you, carry you, and to share this grief, and to feel you in the love that remains.

4 years later, 4 years closer

Sunrise and Sunset ~

💞

Watching the sunrise with you, 3/28/2026

Happy 18th Birthday Card

Dear Jack,

I see you so clearly right now, it’s as if you’re just down the hall, getting ready—choosing your fall look with that signature Jack confidence. Tan cargo pants, a striped polo in rich autumn colors, excited to lose the summer wardrobe and have new choices. You always had a way of owning your style, even at your young age, and I imagine now at 18, you’d be even bolder with it. I would attempt the Birks and you would default to your squeaky clean New Balances that always perfectly matched your outfit. Socks too!

I can almost see your hair now, longer, those curls finally getting their moment. Moving away from the short and tight, to the trendy, flowy and long. On trend. Maybe a few highlights too—because when Jules got hers, I just know the wheels were turning in your mind. You were always curious, always watching, always ready to try something new with a grin that said,“Why not?”

Your birthday. Eighteen. I can feel the weight of it in my chest—how big it is, how much it should’ve been. I would’ve needed a bigger SUV this year, just to fit the 18 balloons we would tie to your wheels. Cookies and cream ice cream, of course. The party would have been wild—colorful, loud, full of your favorite people (especially the girls, because let’s be honest, Jack, you were always surrounded by them). I used to joke that you wouldn’t ever settle on just one. But maybe this year? Maybe.

Tomorrow is the day. I’ll carry it with both pain and delight—aching for what’s missing, and loving you so much it still takes my breath away. I’ll plan something. Something you’d show up for, because I know you do! Keep the signs coming.

See you tomorrow, buddy.
Love you forever,
Mom

3 years living in the shadow of loss

Three years. It’s hard to fathom how quickly time can pass when it feels like a lifetime since my world was torn apart. Three years of living in the silence, in the shadow of a loss that no one can truly understand unless they’ve lived it. Three years since I lost my son.

In those first few months, I was wrapped up in a fog, stumbling through days that felt like I was underwater, everything muffled and distant. But as time goes on, life continues. People keep moving, and you’re expected to move on with them. But here’s the thing no one tells you: you don’t really move after you lose a child. You just change. The person you were before doesn’t exist anymore. Instead, you become a version of yourself that’s been altered by loss and grief.

I meet new people now, they meet me 3 years after my loss.

And that’s when I feel it—the space that opens up between me and everyone else. It’s as if the loss creates a distance so great that I can no longer quite reach anyone. I’m walking in a crowd of people, but they don’t see me. A mother who had a son. A mother who has lived 3 years without her son has died.

Today I remember the years before and honor the 3 years after.

I acknowledge my identity is no longer just mine. It was once entwined with yours—my role as your mother, my joy in your smile, our hands holding, a bath time rituals, movies and the stories we shared, the plans we made. Losing you didn’t just take away a person I loved, it took away a part of me that was whole. And now, I navigate this world, not as I once was, but as someone different, someone defined by loss.

Grief has a way of shaping you, of making you retreat into a place where you can still feel connected to what you’ve lost but also distant from the world. The quietness isn’t just about sadness—it’s about a fear of being seen, of being asked to explain something so deep that no words can ever make sense of it.

Three years have passed, but in some ways, I feel like I’m just beginning to understand what it means to keep moving, to keep living, in this world without you. People walk around me, meeting me, getting to know me, but what they don’t realize is that I’m carrying something invisible—something that makes me feel both present and absent at the same time. I am here, but I am not.

Three years later, and I still don’t know if I’ve built up a wall or if I’ve just become invisible. But I do know that the sadness has settled into the corners of my life, and that’s a story I will carry with me forever.

Thank you Jack for guiding my way. Leading me in sorrow. Showing me a great love. A lens that is sacred and mine.

Photos

Jack is 17!

oh sweet boy you are 17 today…
I got 14 years with you and now 3 birthdays without your physical self. Unbelievable. But. Real.

Your birthday celebrates your birth, a special day that encompasses so much joy and so much pain. You kicked started my heart lil man. As I sit and share the memories nothing about your entrance or stay was ever easy, simple or “normal”. It was all about complicated, hard and struggle. Which made you more than just my child. It made me. It has created my world that I live in. Your birthday will always be reflected as the Wisest. Hardest. Scariest. Gift.

Today I feel proud how I am moving through life without you here but allowing you to show up and guide me. I am honored to have a VIP guide now and recognize your birthday is just another reminder of all the treasures and nuggets you give. Then. And. Now.

I am standing proud but as always a birthday brings hard again, because this day is built primarily around your past and your memories. No new memories which is my constant struggle. So I attempt to take your guidance and try to incorporate into this day. I want this day to focus around your gifts and wisdom that you continue to give since you left this unsettled, unsteady earth. And Jack these gifts continue to bring me hope and find joy is such heartache. And. Pain.

you are the best thing that ever happened to me.

love you bubba

mom, aka mom to Jack

forever Jack’s Mom