A Date I Dread: Honoring My Mother Five Years Later
Grief doesn’t get smaller—it teaches you to grow around it.
July 29th is a date I dread.
This year marked five years since I lost my mother—the heart and soul of my life. To be fully transparent, I carry a quiet anxiety as that date approaches every year. But five years? That felt monumental. Heavy. Unexplainably sharp.
My mother was everything. My biggest cheerleader. My creative muse. The most generous and loving person I’ve ever known. So much of the woman I’ve become is rooted in the gifts she passed down to me: her strength, her warmth, her kindness, her flair for beauty and celebration. I am honored to carry those traits. But I’d be lying if I said it makes her absence any easier.
Typically, I’ve marked this day with a post—words shared publicly in remembrance. But this year felt different. Maybe it’s growth, maybe it’s weariness. Maybe it’s simply that grief has no timeline, no playbook. What I do know is this: I didn’t want the swirl of messages, or the triggering reminders. So I chose stillness. I didn’t post. I didn’t share. I sat with it—quietly, privately, and tenderly.
Something had been on my heart for a while—a way to honor not just my mother, but the three women who shaped me most and are now watching over me: my grandmother, my sister (who passed on my birthday), and my mother. All three of them, now resting side by side. Three beautiful souls. Three powerful angels.
So I got a tattoo—three butterflies, one for each of them.
The irony, or maybe the divine poetry of it, is that I see butterflies everywhere. I always have. I’m drawn to them in the most unexpected moments. They’ve come to feel like whispers from beyond, gentle reminders that love doesn’t end; it simply changes form.
Now, when I look at my tattoo, I don’t just see ink. I see a symbol of transformation, of presence, of the bond that transcends time and space. I see them.
Grief isn’t linear. It ebbs and flows, it quiets and returns. But what I’ve learned in these five years is that you can hold pain and gratitude in the same breath. That honoring your grief doesn’t always require words. Sometimes, it just requires truth—and love.
To anyone navigating their own loss: I see you. You’re not alone.
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