Today marks seven years since I lost my mom, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about grief, it’s that it changes shape over time. In the beginning, grief felt loud and heavy. Impossible to ignore. It sat in every room, every holiday, every milestone. It consumed everything.
But seven years later, grief looks different.
Now it shows up quietly. In random moments I never see coming. In the middle of a normal day when I instinctively think, “I should call my mom and tell her this,” before remembering I can’t. Lately, I’ve realized something about grief that I didn’t understand in the beginning: over time, you not only grieve what you lost, but you start grieving everything they’re missing too.
My mom doesn’t get to see how talented my daughter has become or the young woman she’s growing into. She doesn’t get to watch my son become his own person with his own humor, personality, and passions. She doesn’t get to see the life my husband and I have built through all the hard seasons we’ve weathered together.
She missed me going back to teach middle school after many years in elementary. She missed me becoming a contributor and writing articles for Knoxville Moms. And somehow, seven years later, that’s the part that still catches me off guard: realizing the person who would’ve been the proudest of us doesn’t get a front row seat to any of it.
A few months ago, after my hysterectomy, I remember thinking how badly I wanted my mom. Not because she could magically fix anything, but because there are certain versions of yourself that still just want their mother, especially the overwhelmed version and the exhausted version. The version trying to hold everything together while pretending you’re fine.
As I’ve gotten older, I think my understanding of my mom has changed too. There are things I understand now that I didn’t fully understand when she was alive. The invisible weight mothers carry. The constant worrying. The way you can be completely drained and still keep showing up for everyone anyway.
Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell her that I get it now.
There are entire chapters of my life she missed, and somehow that part of grief still feels hard to explain to people who haven’t lived it because grief doesn’t stay frozen in time. It changes as your life changes.
Every new season brings another moment where you think, “She should be here for this.” And even though she isn’t here to see any of it, there are still moments when I realize how much of who I am came from her.
I hear her in the things I say to my kids. I see her in the way I care for people. I feel her in the parts of myself I didn’t even realize came from her until I became older. She helped shape every version of me, even the ones she never got to meet.
Seven years later, I still miss her. Not just for who she was then, but for everything she should still be here to see now. I think there will always be a part of me that wishes my mom could see who we all became. The kids. The life my husband and I have built. The hard seasons we made it through. The newer versions of me she never got to know.
Maybe that’s just part of loving someone after they’re gone – continuing to carry them with you through all the chapters they should be here for.
