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The Surreal — Day 15: One Year Later

July 6, 2025

It was real. She was real. She was genuine and she loved so much. She was kind, she was gentle, she was lovely. She was happy, she was strong, she was proud. She smiled brightly and shined iridescently.

She was my Mommy, and she was a mother and a friend to so many. I just miss my mom. Each day she feels just a little farther away. Each day it hurts just a little more. I hate this so much.

I experienced immense growth and healing over the past six years, and the past six months I had begun counseling to work through the traumas I had been stuck in. Life felt nearly perfect. It was so beautiful and so sweet. These past few years God taught me that incredible goodness transpires after formidable sorrow.

I wish this wasn’t happening, but I know that life will be good again. This sadness will always be with me, but a time will come when it doesn’t bring me to my knees every day. It will probably always bring me to my knees at random moments, but it won’t always be this horrible.

Mourning sacredly positions us between this reality and the metaphysical. Grief connects us closely to the next realm and forces us to think of a lifetime of memories, teleporting our minds into the past.

Our past was real. It was sacred, it was sweet.

I don’t know what the future holds, and if I’m quite honest, right now I am anxious about it: Am I doomed to the same fate? Is my family? Loss instantly makes one so afraid of more loss. I have reason to be anxious, but I likewise have reason to hope.

Sorrow and joy have eclipsed my life for so long. When Mom died, it felt like all the brightness vaporized from my whole world. She was so bright and so optimistic and so full of light and life. Losing her has left such an enormous void in my life and in the lives of so many others. She was light in so many ways🤍. Right now, life feels so dark, but light will return to our eyes.

I am experiencing a depth of sorrow I never imagined possible and never wanted, but I know I will grow and heal to experience a happiness and a joy I could never before comprehend.

Loss has changed and shaped my life in unimaginable ways. In ways I never wanted, but this isn’t the end.

This isn’t my family’s end. This isn’t our end.

My Mom was a glorious light, and she was one of the best parts of my life. She gave me life, not just in my birth, but in all the joy she gave me. In all of our wonderful memories, in all of our laughter, in all of our joy. She made my life fun. She made everything fun.

I don’t know how to do this without her. I don’t know how to be bright and fun and loving, not like she was, but I want to honor her. I barely know how to laugh without her. It’s so dark without her right now, but the light is coming. I want to make her proud. I want to dance in the light she had, in a way she always wished she had.

I loved my Momma. I always will.

Thank you, Momma, for being the brightest light in my life.

I love you forever,

I love you for always.

On earth or in heaven,

Your baby I’ll be.

July 6, 2026

A chasm, a deep and rich valley, seems to separate me from my mother now. I feel such a vast distance from her. It seems like ages since she left, but these surreal feelings remain.

Strangely, it’s as if she was from an entirely different life. It feels unbelievable that I really had a Momma, and that now she’s obliterated.

It’s difficult to explain, but it often feels like she couldn’t have been real. My mind has a hard time reconciling that she is and then was — there’s a cruel dissonance.

How could she be all of these wonderful things and yet no longer be?

How can she affect every fiber of my being and yet not be in this world any longer?

Sudden, unexpected deaths transpose survivors between the worlds of “is” and “was,” leaving us in a liminal space between realities. It’s not an obsession with death or loss, it’s a new perspective forced upon us the moment they breathed their last breath

She gave me no reason to mourn while she was alive, she gave me no indication of her life being close to death. How long did she plan to leave me?

I wonder what she would say to me now. I wonder if her eyes would well with heavy tears.

I wonder if she would do it again, knowing what she knows now. Or maybe I don’t want to know.

She was real. It was all real. This life and this death of unfathomable depths confronts every layer of perspective. It stitches to each layer, a cord of red — the color of blood, the color or life poured out — and sews depth and love and loss into the fabric of my tattered and strewn life.

A necklace of tears my friend Kelly gifted me 🤍

Survivors’ Isolation — Day 14: One Year Later

July 5, 2025

Two weeks.

There’s a weight so heavy on my chest I feel like I can barely breathe. It feels like I am operating at 50% of my normal capacity, if that. It feels so heavy. What does that even mean? Why does it legitimately feel like there is a weight pressed against my lungs, collapsing them? How does that work? How does the body do that?

I thought we had something special, me and my mom. I thought we had a great relationship. Now I feel like I didn’t even know her. Who was this woman I spent so much time with? I thought she liked being with me, I thought she wanted to be in my life, I thought she wanted to be here. But in the end, she wanted to leave me. It wasn’t worth it for her to stay in my life. She didn’t want to see me grow up anymore. I thought we were going to be two old ladies together. I thought she wanted me. I thought she wanted me. Did she think I did not love her? Why weren’t we enough?

I hate my name. I’ve hated it for a long time. My mom gave me this name because she hoped so badly for me… what good did that do for her? It’s so cruel to be named Hope when it feels like so many people in my world are hopeless.

“Hopey, you’re my Hope. You make me believe that everything’s going to be okay and that we’re really going to make it.” That’s what my brother Patrick told me two days before he ended his life. Once he died, I really started to hate my name.

Before that, I was always a pessimist. It felt so ironic to be called “hope” when I so seldom experienced hope myself.

Now this? I hate my name. It feels so cruel tonight.

Why did I start writing these? I keep asking myself that. More precisely, why did I start publishing these? I’ve loved writing for my entire life. I used to write fantastical stories, dreaming worlds late into the night when I was just a young girl. Then in puberty I started writing to cope with my ever-changing world. Now, I almost exclusively write when my emotions cloud my head, spill out of my eyes, and pours from an ink pen onto a blank page.

So, why did I start publishing these?

After Patrick died, I seriously isolated myself. I did not answer my phone for over a month and I had no desire to make contact with the outside world.

In our American culture, grief is so private. Suicide is beyond taboo, and people in mourning may be given three days of bereavement leave. Three days… how pathetic. Our culture almost treats grief like something to be ashamed of or to be quickly gotten over. Because of this, death and grief are seldom discussed and very few — especially at my ripe old age of 27 — people do not have much of a framework/understanding of mourning and grief.

Grief shouldn’t isolate. It should be something that pulls us all together, something that makes us stop and hold one another closer, something that prompts us to change our lives for the better.

As my friend Olivia Chancellor always says “Alone is a lie.” Maybe if I share my thoughts, others will have the courage to share theirs too. Thoughts can be scary and painful and feel so isolating, but alone is a lie. “Everything that is exposed by the light becomes visible–and everything that is illuminated becomes light,” Ephesians 5:13. It’s only when we share our darkest thoughts that we are truly able to heal from them.

I want to live. I want to have a life full of beauty and joy and pain and wonder. I want to experience it all. I want to be fully present. I want to experience life to the full in every possible way, no matter how it hurts.

I don’t want to move on from this. I will be carrying this for the rest of my life, and I want to grow and learn to carry this with grace and love and even hope. I want to live, and I want to live well.

July 5, 2026

I don’t have much energy to add anything to this today.

Maybe these posts help people to be brave, maybe they help explain or empathize or realize one’s own emotions. Maybe they give people a glimpse into my life. Maybe they help people gossip. Maybe they make someone else feel less alone.

I didn’t want to wall myself off from the world this time. I wanted the world to know what it’s like, even if it’s just tiny glimpses of my mind and heart for one week at a time.

Everything is painful in this reality, and everything is complicated. I’ve been really frustrated about that lately.

Sometimes it feels like there are no good things — even good things are met with hurt and pain and confusion. That’s been the hardest reality thing to accept lately. It’s the type of thing that makes me want to run away, leave all this behind, and start a new life somewhere where no one knows my name or my story.

I’ve gotten to start over my entire life. Seldom staying anywhere for more than four years, and yet it’s hard, too, not to have any roots.

Grief isolates regardless of one’s best attempts to mourn in a community. It’s the nature of being a survivor — I survived. My brothers survived, my dad survived. My mother is “survived by” the four of us she left behind, and that’s it.

She left dear friends behind, a whole community behind, an entire world behind, but they didn’t survive. They aren’t on that short list of survivors, and that fact separates more than outsiders can fathom.

Grief isolates because it steals energy and capacity and time and color from the world. Grievers can barely reach out or respond to those around them, not because they don’t want to but because they have no energy or thought capacity to do so.

Only a shadow of the griever remains, and people have a hard time holding onto shadows.

We’ll get some life back, we survivors. One day. One day, it won’t take up all of our energy and we’ll be able to show up for our friends again. I’ve been a survivor for enough years to remember that, at one point, I was able to show up for friends again.

In the meantime, it just sucks. Even people closest to survivors weary of our lack of capacity, because it hurts them, too. It’s not easy when you’re supporting a survivor but you too need support. In fact, it’s painful. We can’t be what you want us to be. We can’t even be what we want to be ourselves.

I’m still half of myself, operating at 50% or less, and I’m tired of it, too.

* * * *

May the God of all peace comfort you with his love.

May others come beside you and support you in your hurt.

May an empathetic ear hear your pain and see you with eyes of compassion and love.

May you extend grace.

May your mind rest and slumber.

May you remember how loved you are, even when you can barely show up.

May someone love you in your weakness.

May you experience that love.

Metabolizing Grief — Day 13: One Year Later

July 4, 2025

I screamed a lot in my car today. Just… screamed. “Mom!! Why did you do this?” Through sobs, “Mom, please come back, please come back!”… “Mom!!” I cried out in anguish.

But it’s useless, she’s gone.

My mind really does not want to believe it. I meet her in dreams, only to wake and feel her light snuffed out of the world. She was sitting on our living room couch in last night’s dream, and I was asking her why she wouldn’t join us at the table. I don’t remember what she answered, I just remember telling her that it did not make sense and that she should join the rest of us at the table because we love her and want to be with her.

Denial’s amazing protectiveness still shields me, for the most part, but everything feels so heavy. I feel the horror and the sadness deeply about once a day: I’ll cry, I’ll protest. I really wish this was not a part of my life. I wish this was not the end of hers. I wish it so badly that denial and numbness creep back in and calmness returns.

I feel like an outside observer to my own feelings and my own thought process. I feel them, objectively define them, and then move on.

Each day, the sadness grows and strengthens. I feel the denial slowly slipping away, and I fear when my mind allows me to fully grasp the situation. How much is this really going to hurt when my mind finally lets me feel it? It already hurts so much, but the pain will become vivid soon, and it will never, ever end.

I have so much life left to live. It feels like my life has only begun, and I will feel this sorrow for all of my days.

I’m not angry with God, though I would like to be. Anger is such an easy emotion to experience — anger is easy to fuel and easy to calm — it’s not as ambiguous as sorrow. It feels like it would be easy to be angry at God, but my every need has been met. People have been so generous and caring and kind — I can’t be angry when I perceive such marvels from God amidst all this pain.

I am confused: I will never understand why God allowed this nor why God did not intervene, but perhaps God had intervened several times. I will never know how many times my mother was close ending her life but chose not to because someone intervened. I just wish she would have told us, as I am sure we all do.

She had so many people who loved her deeply, and she could have reached out to any of us. That is a collective hurt those closest to her bear and must work through for the rest of our lives, and many of us have so much life yet to be lived.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Presence is best 🤍. Be here, share here, create space here.

Love each other well.

We used to love sharing a Chili’s molten lava cake

July 4, 2026

My mind has done an incredible job “metabolizing” this grief. I’ve often said over the past few months that Mom’s death has been “easier but more painful,” than when Patrick died.

Easier, because I have significantly more support, better tools, and more experience than I had when Patrick died. More painful, because of the compounding grief and unimaginable complexities that occurred as a result of Momma’s choice.

I’m amazed at and proud of my resilience through this unbearable loss, and I’m thankful for how I have chosen to process and to pursue healing. I miss my Momma every moment of every day. There’s not a second I don’t think of her.

I never did have a massive moment when the reality of her death hit, at least not like how I envisioned. I thought it would be a debilitating day where everything came crashing down and I spiraled out, but it wasn’t like that this time.

I’ve certainly had days and moments when the weight constricts my breathing as if a true weight was placed on my chest, I’ve had moments where I scream and cry and fall apart for a bit, but I’ve been more surprised by the calmness of this grief.

It’s steady, constant, ever-present, heavy, and sad, but I’ve accepted it. I’ve nurtured it when I need to, I’ve acknowledged when it’s affecting other relationships, I’ve notated what’s triggering or when I’m emotionally activated.

The part I’m having the hardest time accepting right now is that my Mom’s death seems to cause drama with even happy life changes. Her death makes everything complicated, always, and I hate that. I don’t want to accept that every milestone forever will be twinged with sadness and, often, somehow produce more drama.

I don’t think it will always be dramatic, but it will always be sad, too. I hate that.

Splinters — Day 12: One Year Later

July 3, 2025

This is actually my second “Day 12” post: I deleted the first one because out of my wounds, I may have wounded another. As I heard John Mark Comer state, “our wickedness is fueled by our wounds.” I was childish in venting my frustrations with a person to the public, and I owe that individual and anyone who read my first post an apology. This is not the time, place, or space to address something of that nature. Especially because I know that person is hurting, too.

It’s heavy. It’s burdensome. Thoughts and sentences and simple human interaction, right now, are hard for me, it’s hard for my family, and it’s hard for our entire community. We all need grace, and grace in abundance.

Most of the time, I simply feel sick. I have no appetite [but don’t worry, I am eating], I feel nauseous and out-of-it and sad. I feel grateful, I feel sad, and I feel numb. Humans are so complex, how is it that we feel so much at the same time?

——————

We have been provided for in every way from the generous people from our church: “Give us this day our daily bread,” comes alive when each meal is delivered, with each meal perfectly supplying enough for my family each day. That has been beautiful and heartwarming and uplifting. People have been the hands and feet of Jesus each day, serving us, providing for us, ministering to us, and caring for us, and it has been astonishing and incredible to experience.

I cannot over-emphasize how grateful I am for our community and how in-awe I am for how we have been treated and loved.

I’ve never felt more provided for or taken care of than I do right now. “God is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit” Psalm 34:18. I believe that now more than ever, despite my inevitable deconstruction. I believe it’s far easier to dismiss God than to have faith and trust in him under circumstances like these — this is when faith and trust becomes real.

—————

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically Suicide Survivors

Saying “It doesn’t matter how they died,” is dismissive. When someone takes their own life, there is no natural cause, no illness, and no accident to blame.

Someone bereaved by suicide can only blame the person who committed the act, and his/her self. Suicide creates an arduous mental cycle. For me, it plays out something like this…

• I’m angry at my mom, she did this to me

• I’m confused. Why didn’t she reach out? Anyone would have helped her, I would have helped her

• I’m sad. She was in so much pain. What was she hopeless about? Why was she despairing?

• I’m confused and wounded. I don’t know what it’s like to have or to lose a child, but I cannot imagine she would give up life with her three living children because she was so desperate to be with her son. Her son, my brother, who also took his life.

• I’m sad, and I’m guilty. Did she know I loved her?

• I blame myself. Why didn’t I notice her? Why didn’t she want to confide in me? What did I miss?

And the cycle repeats. These are thoughts are examples of how suicide survivors think and process this type of death: grief from natural causes does not require this mental load. Thus, when one says that “it doesn’t matter how she died,” it points to their ignorance of the psychological impact and damage suicide survivors suffer.

Yes, all death is painful and comparing types of deaths certainly does not help anyone, but please try to understand the differences between a natural death and someone taking their own life.

Acknowledge the suicide survivor’s pain, and acknowledge your own pain. Vulnerability leads to life, bypassing of any type (spiritual bypassing, avoidance, denial, etc) leads to death. Take care of yourself — bypassing is not worth it.

July 3, 2026

Ah yes, Day 12. This was the first time I posted something critical about our former church. A few things sparked it: I had not been contacted, they held a women’s only suicide-specific night of healing, and the pastor did not mention her name or death to the congregation.

The lack of contact was very strange to me. My director from work, whom I barely knew (boss’s-boss’s-boss’s-boss) had reached out several times, but my pastor who I saw weekly never did. Nor did anyone from the executive staff — not until about two weeks ago, when they sent a kind card and flowers in honor of my Mom’s one year anniversary. I wonder if they mentioned her name at church that week.

The women’s only night of healing was a good idea… for women, but it completely neglected all men, as if my Mom’s life did not impact any men. I often wonder, had a man died, would they make it a night of men’s-only healing? Also… my family wasn’t invited to the event. And also… I’m her only surviving woman — the rest, the majority of her survivors, are men. Our lack of invitation hurt, then the lack of a place for the men in my life to go also hurt. It felt dismissive of male grief.

People weren’t ready for this information, though. When I first posted it, people called my family members panicking about it. That put guilt on my family members who didn’t write the post, and that wasn’t fair.

Things only got worse from here.

What I’ve observed, is that from outsider’s perspectives, it is always the griever’s responsibility to show grace. It’s the griever’s responsibility to reach out to people who hurt them. It’s the griever’s responsibility to consider the people who caused hurt’s feelings. It’s the griever’s responsibility to play the mental game of making sure no one else has hurt feelings. God forbid someone hurts the griever — that someone obviously didn’t know what to say or do… so it’s the griever’s responsibility to deal with their ignorance and excusable behavior.

Sigh.

This day marked beginning of a very big crack, splinters forming a great divide, a desolation that time does not mend.

I forgive them, and I thank them for reaching out a couple weeks ago and for the flowers.

The funny thing about pain is that you only experience it because you care. I loved these people, and I don’t believe love ever goes away. Circumstances can just change how you express it.

Who is God? — Day 9: One Year Later

June 30, 2025

Our second church service since Mom left us filled me with encouragement once more. A healthy amount of tears dripped from my sore eyes onto my pallid cheeks as we sang of God’s good plans, his faithfulness, and his constance. All of which I believe, and I mean really believe.

However, I mentioned the dissonance between faith and desperate circumstances during Mom’s Celebration of Life, and I want to share more of what exactly that looks like. Suffering forces people to confront their inmost beliefs, and that is completely healthy and can become beautiful. My Mom loved Jesus with her entire being: the cacophony of confusion left in her wake prompts intense introspection and deconstruction.

Our Father in heaven,

your name be honored as holy.

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13, CSB

Now, please understand, I’m not looking for answers and I do not plan to provide any at this time, but I do want to share the questions clamoring in my mind. Thoughts that, perhaps, cloud your mind as well. Maybe sharing my thoughts will help those echoing the same to feel less alone and less afraid, because two thoughts can be true at the same time: one can trust God and be utterly confused and skeptical at the same time. Thus, my questions:

• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine?

• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him.

• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met?

I’ve said this so many times — I believe that God can do all things, but I fear what he will allow to happen. This is precisely why: I have now experienced twice how despair and hopelessness kill those whom I love, and those who legitimately love Jesus.

Today, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the generosity and the care from mine and Scott’s small group. They ensured our current needs were met and provided provisions for our future needs. My family has experienced such incredible and support from people being the hands and feet of Jesus, and, because of them, right now my faith remains strong. I wrestle through these complex questions, but it is abundantly clear that we have our daily bread, that God is providing and caring for us, and that we will get through this. I cannot thank our community enough for all they have done. You have eclipsed this horribly dark and tragic time with light and love and I am amazed and humbled at all of this. Thank you.

Tips for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way 💙

June 30, 2026

God is faithful. His faithful love endures forever.

I’ve grown through the year — not that suffering is meant for one to grow, but that God can bring the blessing of growth and new perspective despite suffering. I reject the notion that anyone “needs” suffering to glean a cosmic understanding, but I acknowledge that committing to healing and renewed life can provide a beautiful glimpse into ethereal understanding.

It is better when people dwell in unity, and I miss the moments when I perceived my mother’s church as a safe place to attend. Maybe that safety was real, maybe it was an illusion. Maybe catastrophic loss changed things for the worse or perhaps it revealed a truth that was always there.

This particular Sunday was one of the most influential in my memory because of the sweet group of friends that continued to meet my family exactly where we were at. Their profound generosity and kindness shines brightly in my otherwise darkened memory: they provided for us for months. They gave sweet notes and gift cards that lasted until I returned back to work. The profound sadness and stress of losing my Momma was/is horrific to bear, but they eased that burden by ensuring that I did not need to worry about returning to work. I did not need to worry about what we would eat or how we would make it — they met those needs in the most incredible ways.

I think some supporters can feel an element of guilt because they are not sure how to support, nor do they feel that their support is enough, but support as detailed above enables more healing than supporters can imagine. People who acknowledge the loss, empathize with a griever’s perspective, and provide physical support for things we grievers can barely think about are earnest. There is nothing to be guilty about here, in fact, it’s something a griever cannot “repay.”

To a supporter, it may seem trivial that they had one honest and empathetic conversation or provided money towards a gift card or a meal while expecting nothing in return, but to a survivor this is the bread of life. This is the kindness that kept us from sinking, this is the provision that kept us eating, this is the support that allowed our mind to focus on healing from the loss instead of focusing on how we are going to afford to survive.

Kindness, compassion, and love change the world.

Kindness, compassion, and love nurture healing.

Above all, God is love.

* * * *

A deluge of questions barraged my mind back then. What was a flood dwindled to a trickle of ever-present drops of questions, much less intense but nevertheless constant. Healing harvests new worldviews, and these are my new perspectives on those old questions:

• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine? God is love. Love protects, but love cannot control all outcomes. My perspective on the idea that God “allows” certain outcomes was most challenged by Thomas Jay Oord’s book God Can’t, as I have previously mentioned. I believe that God gave people free will, and that people harm one another. In this specific case, it was my Momma who harmed our family [not God]. Individuals are accountable for their actions because of their free will. God is love, and love protects. If God could protect from this harm, He would.

• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him. How much we love God and/or others does not cure, manage, or heal mental illness. People who love Jesus can be suicidal. People who love Jesus can be delusional. One’s love for God and other people is simply not enough to keep him or her alive. There is no relationship between theological beliefs and mental illness — belief or love of Jesus does not fix mental illness at all. In fact, people can put their entire hope and joy in heaven and begin to loathe this beautiful life they were given. I call this idea Christian Escapism: the belief that one’s life is altogether terrible and it would be better to unite with Christ in one’s idealized imagined heaven. Life is always a gift, life is always a blessing. We were not given the gift of life simply to die.

• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met? Mom’s needs could have been met. She was an educated white woman in America, with more friends and connections that most people have in their lifetime. She had the resources available. She had the support available. She was capable of having her needs, whatever they were, met. Mental illness creates delusions — delusions that choices are limited, that life is altogether horrible, that our pain will always be all-consuming. It isn’t God’s fault that my Mother did not pursue life and healing, and I believe that it is as tragic to God as it is to us.

I do not fear what God allows anymore. I fear what man is capable of, and what man will choose to do with his or her freedom. I fear what people will do with their brokenness and hurt. I fear what people will do with their anger and frustration. Emotions offer so much insight into who we are as individuals: they reveal what is important to us and help us experience the fullness of life in its brevity and elation. They are a gift, but a gift that requires nurturing and tending. I fear what people will do when they do not tend to their emotions and when they do not pursue healing.

Daring to Live — Day 8: One Year Later

June 29, 2025

Funeral preparations cease but a few friends and family members from out of town remain close. Reality slowly creeps in as the whispers of finding a “new normal” lingers just around the corner. In a matter of days, most of the world will return to work while we begin to reorganize our lives.

My Daddy, of course, will have the most significant adjustment for his day-to-day life. Already, he sleeps without my Mom, but he has not had to experience a “typical” day without her. They were partners, they were friends, and they were lovers. I always thought they really would be that couple from The Notebook: I never thought this could happen.

Their relationship was an anchor in my life. They endured and overcame agonizing trauma together again and again and again, and they were the best of friends. Growing up, I always wanted a marriage like theirs. Since getting married, I still wanted a relationship like theirs! My marvelous husband and I watched their love for one another with reverence and admiration. They were such an amazing team. They loved being together and they loved each other well. It’s difficult not to be really angry with my mom when I think of their truly inspirational marriage… and then it’s really, really, really sad.

As my brother Luke reminded, my siblings and I had never known a world without Mom until eight days ago.

Rehabilitation — that’s the word that keeps bustling through my mind. Learning to live without Mom feels like rehabilitating back into normal society: walking, driving, talking, biking, writing, smiling, and so much more, feels so foreign and unnatural. I feel as though I can barely hold a thought or concept in my mind.

Denial persists more than anything right now, a dull ache thumps within me at all times, but most of the time I can’t believe my Mom’s gone and I can’t believe my mom left me feels like a distant thought and not an annihilating reality. My Momma, I still mumble in shock. Moments of mayhem pierce me to the core, preparing me for when the shock wears off and when I’ll have to truly face this menacing reality.

My Mom grounded and anchored my life, creating stability and safety. What now?

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

I have provided many things not to say — all of which from comments multiple people have made, not just one-off comments as to not single anyone out — but there are so many good things people say as well.

“I’m sorry” feels like such a weak thing to say, but it encompasses a tremendous amount of emotion and care. The short phrase empathizes with the mourners and often creates an understanding between two hurting people.

Future Ways to Help

Small tasks are incredibly helpful — doing a load of laundry, wiping down a counter, calling to set up a dental appointment. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even remember to put a pair of shoes on – it’s invaluable to notice those little things that may be neglected and to help one another out.

We’re a grieving community, and we’ve got this 💙

June 29, 2026

What happens when you lose an anchor in your life?

You simply keep living, limping, breaking every day.

My parents had a beautiful marriage, and facing the world without their partnership in it is strange and unnerving.

I’m not sure if “new normal” ever actually arrives. There is nothing normal about my life and there never will be.

Losses like this aren’t normal. They are tragic. They take people’s breath away. No, I don’t believe “new normal” ever arrives. I think I simply keep on living in the liminal spaces, mind and heart forever fixated on what is and what was.

Two things can be true: I had a mother who loved me, and I had a mother who did the most unloving thing imaginable. She murdered. She killed. Not only herself, but her entire family unit.

My dad lost his wife. My siblings lost our mother. Our family, as we knew it, ceased to exist because she murdered it.

A year later, and most of the shock has worn off.

* * * *

It dawns on me how few people truly have compassion.

Everyone pities the griever, until he or she does something they disagree with.

Everyone claims to support, claims to be there, claims to honor, claims to befriend the griever… until the griever does something they cannot understand.

After that, other people’s feelings somehow become the griever’s fault.

It’s the griever who has to consider them.

It’s the griever who should have anticipated someone else else’s thought.

It’s the griever who should have considered everyone else before they choose to live their life.

We survivors have one responsibility: to survive. For suicide survivors, specifically, the risk of survival far outweighs the likelihood of their own suicide. In my family — with double suicides — we are more likely to kill ourselves than we are to life a full life and die a natural death.

When we choose to keep living, when we begin to find new life and try to start moving on, we are met with an anger. We are met with calloused behaviors if we aren’t moving on fast enough, and simultaneously we are met with silence and judgment when we dare to build a new life.

It’s impossible to be a griever. It’s impossible to be a supporter, too. Everyone gets it wrong. It’s such a sensitive area that both grievers and their supporters often unintentionally hurt each other and lack the grace and compassion to reach to the other side. This perpetuates immense pain and creates situations that grievers and supporters would not have seen coming.

My responsibility — and my father’s and my brother’s responsibility — is to live. My responsibility is to survive. My responsibility is to find new joy in life and to attempt to create a life that’s worth living, because the life that I was dealt by someone else’s choices isn’t worth it. The life my mother handed down to me, full of anguish and pain, isn’t worth living. It’s the life I dare to create and in wake of her decision that makes life worth living.

We are punished for grieving, and then we are punished for living.

We are punished if we do not seek healing, and then we are punished when our healing manifests in new ways that others were not ready to accept.

Supporting survivors requires more courage, more compassion, and more grace than many are even to provide. I do not fault anyone for their limits, but I do not understand when people choose to judge me or my family members for daring to live.

Life should be celebrated. Newness should be celebrated. Daring to live should be celebrated.

Shame and Stigma — Day 7: One Year Later

June 28, 2025

I’ve never appreciated the term “Celebration of Life,” but that’s exactly what we experienced today.

The sacred beauty of funerals presents itself in the friends who show up, the people who tune in, and the unique set of individuals determined to listen and observe the stories of a life once lived.

Today you found out how my mom died: you learned the news we wish we did not need to share. I hate that this is part of Mom’s story, and I hate that it is part of mine.

When I think back over the years, maybe every day we had with my mom since Patrick died was a miracle — maybe it was a miracle before even that. We’ll never know, and that’s severely painful.

I thought this past year was the best year of my life. I thought we were all having so much fun. It’s abysmally burdensome to reconcile, but I do know that multitudes of feelings may commingle — joy with sorrow, anger with relief, frustration with love.

As was said many times today, “May we never be defined by our worst moments.” My Momma was so beautiful, and she loved life, and she endured an unimaginable despair. Both were entirely true.

Thank you for my Momma’s beautiful Celebration of Life. She would have loved it 🩷

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically for Suicide Survivors

  1. If a cause of death is not published immediately, it is likely because it is due to a highly sensitive cause of death – such as suicide – It is rude to ask the family “What happened?” prior to the family’s announcement. Curiosity is natural, but respect the family when a cause of death is not mentioned.
  2. Do not ask someone how their loved one took their life. This is also quite rude and this information rarely helps.
  3. Do not ask if “foul play” was involved. Suicide is one of the harshest ways someone can die — a survivor of suicide wishes more than anything else that their loved one did not take their life.
  4. Do not ask if their loved one left a note.

Everyone wants to make sense of a horrible situation, but most questions of this nature are extremely insensitive to suicide survivors.

Future Ways to Help

Listen. Create a safe space for the wounded. A survivor may want to share details such as how their loved one died, this is a privilege and not a right. This sacred information should be honored with respect and reverence.

Reminder for the GoFund Me set up for my Daddy. Our family has an immense amount of trauma to rehabilitate from.

Thank you for loving my Momma 💙

June 28, 2026

I wrote in 2025 that Momma would have loved her celebration of life, but one of her alleged closest friends told us that Mom would have hated it because we evidentially chose the wrong speakers.

I had another family member tell me that it was absolutely horrible that they [who is they??] “forced” us to speak at the funeral. That family member insinuated that it was cruel to make us speak, but really all that the individual did was insult us.

To clarify, we actually did not choose any of the speakers other than my Mom’s boss at that time, but those that did speak did a beautiful job. We offered to allow anyone from Mom’s family to speak and to our food friends the Wallace’s. No one “forced” me and my siblings to speak… we wanted to honor my mom by telling the world about her.

Some have the luxury of not understanding what it’s like to survive suicide and/or traumatic loss — that’s a blessing, but it’s unfortunately a blessing that often causes people to become incredibly insensitive.

* * * *

I had no memory of which date my Mom’s funeral took place, but I suppose it must have been June 28th based on this post.

We held our breath, waiting for the world to discover that Mom took her life.

Suicide stigma prevents many families from sharing with the world the truth of their loved one’s death. When my brother Patrick died, my parents and siblings were instructed that we were not allowed to share with anyone that he committed suicide. This added an unbelievable amount of difficulty, shame, and confusion to an already awful situation.

When you do tell people the cause of death, the first question the majority ask is “Do you think it was murder?” because it’s terribly difficult to accept the betrayal, violence, and incongruity of suicide. This is an incredibly painful question because survivors, more than anything, wish their loved one died in any other way. It’s hard enough to comprehend the suicide, it’s even harder to explain to additional people that “no, it was not murder. It was suicide.”

I once heard that the book of Job was written to demonstrate that when catastrophic loss enters one’s life, a lot of people will come out of the woodwork to tell you their insensitive opinions. The idea makes me laugh, as only we survivors can understand.

* * * *

Shame and stigma is not talking about how she died.

Shame and stigma is blaming the survivors or any other organization connected to the one who died.

Shame and stigma is spreading gossip.

Shame and stigma is asking if it was murder.

Shame and stigma is saying “if [I or you] had done _____ differently, she would have lived.”

Shame and stigma is judging someone who expresses suicidal tendencies by saying he or she is “just saying that for attention.”

Shame and stigma is calling people with mental illness and/or experiencing trauma dramatic.

Shame and stigma is implying the family “should have seen the signs.”

Shame and stigma is treating the family differently because of the suicide.

Shame and stigma is comparing “normal” loss to suicide.

Shame and stigma is saying that prayer and time in God’s word will erase sadness, mental illness, and anxiety.

Shame and stigma is not acknowledging the complexity of suicide.

Shame and stigma is avoiding survivors to protect an organization’s reputation.

Shame and stigma is saying that God “allowed” or “ordained” this.

Shame and stigma is the workplace expecting survivors to return as “normal.”

Shame and stigma is sharing the police report.

Shame and stigma is community speculation about “what really happened.”

Shame and stigma is egotistical responses judging survivors for decisions made within the first days, weeks, and years of the death.

* * * *

Funerals are sacred. They require nearly as much planning as a wedding, in a fraction of the time, without true celebration: death isn’t meant to be rejoiced or celebrated. It is life that is a gift, and death that is cursed.

Funerals are sacred because they’re the closest we are to being between two realms — the realm of earth and life and all we know, and the realm of the unknown dead. Universes collide in this sacred space. A life is recognized, honored, and mourned.

May we commit to compassion towards losses we may never understand. May we forgive and show mercy to those who have harmed [intentionally or unintentionally] us.

Above all, may we love one another well.

May we fight to see another’s perspective, and may we honor how their experiences have affected them.

May we give grace upon grace upon grace, knowing that we too need grace and compassion every day.

The God who Heals — Day 6: One Year Later

June 27, 2025

This surreal week will haunt me for the rest of my life, and yet I’ll remember your kindness vividly in the days to come.

Love permeates everything and its warmth reaches my deep wounds. Tonight, I remember that the New Testament word “Salvation” is the same Greek/Hebrew word for “Healing”. Jehova-Rapha: The God who Heals, written throughout the Old Testament. The God who heals broken hearts and broken minds. The God who binds our wounds and holds us up. El Roi: The God who Sees. The God who sees me — who sees us in our pain.

I live amongst a community of mourners: I know you’re hurting too. I know you loved her, and I know it’s so hard to fathom life without her. She was such a light, such a joy, and so… “sparkly” as my Grandpa, my mom’s dad, described. I love it – she was so sparkly.

Life is so confusing right now. It still doesn’t feel real, until it hits and it hurts excruciatingly. I don’t want it to feel real, I don’t want it to be real. None of us do.

Thank you for being here, for watching, for reading. For holding my hand, playing with my hair, and hugging me. Thank you for loving my mom.

Be well tonight and get some rest 💙 Live loved.

June 27, 2026

The mind works restlessly to comprehend catastrophic loss. In early days and weeks — perhaps even months — after Mom died, I vividly dreamed of her but could not reach her. I knew she was dead during each dream, then I would wake up after a fitful hour or two of sleep and blankly stare into the darkness

Those memories haunt.

We became a community of mourners that day, ever changed by a choice we were powerless control.

Kindness powerfully redeems and heals wounded hearts and minds, but individuals must take ownership of their healing.

Admitting sadness isn’t enough. Admitting depression and anxiety isn’t enough. Admitting isolation isn’t enough. It’s a massive step in the right direction, as many [like my Momma] refuse to admit or acknowledge it to begin with, but saying it aloud isn’t enough to heal someone.

Coming to terms with the reality of one’s own mental fragility can be incredibly painful, vulnerable, dark, and frightening. Yet it is in this darkness that seeds of healing begin to grow when watered with kindness and compassion.

I have been amazed at people’s kindness and cruelty amidst this horror, but I believe that there have been far more kind actions than actions meant to harm. It’s unfortunate that the cruel actions cause such rippling dramas, but it is the compassion that acts as a raft to carry us through.

He is the God who heals and the God who sees, and this healing and seeing often comes from people who peer into our lives to offer compassion.

Thank you for joining me on this lonely and isolating journey, and making me feel less alone 💙

God Can’t — Day 5: One Year Later

June 26, 2025

I’m 27 years old: I thought my family was supposed to be growing at this point in my life, not shrinking, but I’ve lost a brother, a mother, and we can’t get pregnant. We’ve been “trying” for two years now, for all you well-intended people that keep telling us we need to have kids. I don’t like to talk about it, it’s deeply personal. But today? It’s just another wound in a long list of hurts.

It’s hard to trust God in times like these — life can be so cruel, and this feels devastatingly horrific. I see the support of God in the provision for my family, in the food at our table, in our ability to have my remaining living family here, in the friends that hold us, clean for us, and provide for us. The support is palpable, but it’s still hard to trust God. I so often say “I know God can do anything, but I am also vividly aware of what he will allow.” Here we are again, harrowing in what God will allow.

Our table felt so small after Patrick died. Our immediate family of six became a family of five, and now our family of five becomes a family of four. Oh but wait! “They’re always with you!” No, there’re not in the empty chair. It’s still just as painful without them in it. When I was a child, I used to think families of four were so little. Family of four? We had four kids in ours! And it was loud. Now, it’s so quiet. So somber. So mournful. It should be — we loved our Mommy.

It’s so tense and so stressful and so sad. A myriad of emotions waiting to burst from our eyes or escape from our lips.

Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning

Just… be so gracious. As you can read, I’m a little snippy today. I need a lot of grace. Don’t be surprised if someone deep in mourning gets a little snippy with you. It’s not you, it’s all we’ve got going on.

I know many of you reading this are likewise deep in mourning — be gracious with yourself and with your family. I’m sorry if those around you haven’t experienced much grief — it’s incredibly hard to fathom a grieving mind if you haven’t experienced a deep personal loss.

Future Ways to Help

Lawncare: My parents’ have a beautiful lawn, with gorgeous trees and plants. A lawncare service would be very helpful. Beyond a lawncare service, weeds grow so fast here — if you drop by, maybe scan the lawn before coming inside and pick some weeds if you are willing and able to.

Gift cards: Right now we have plenty of food, but in a few months, making dinner every night will feel overwhelming.

Any little act of service helps. All those small little normal tasks feel like such monstrous feats when your heart is hurting.

If you can’t physically help but still want to do something, please consider the GoFund Me: https://gofund.me/6617c101

Thank you, immensely, for everyone who has shown up to help, who has given, and who has prayed. Every little bit helps 💙

June 26, 2026

I’ve pretty much given up hope that our family will grow.

I think many people dream of a family to heal the wounds they inherited from their family of origin. I dream of being a mother who watches her children grow old with my husband, and a mother whose children grow up and live full lives — my dream is the bare minimum — I just want everyone to live. But thus far, it isn’t possible for me to create life, let alone sustain it.

* * * *

My mindset about what God “allows” significantly shifted after reading Thomas Jay Oord’s God Can’t. Christians often acknowledge God’s limits (ie: he cannot sin, lie, manipulate, etc), but seldom do many apply this to what God can and cannot allow. Man cannot have free choice if all his actions are predetermined by an outside source.

I believe that God gave life, life in abundance, and life in fullness. What some have done with life is heartbreaking, but I do not blame God for that anymore — I blame people.

People, in need of desperate grace. People, in need of radical compassion. People, in need of healing.

Week 51

Fifty one.

My mom turned fifty one 21 days before she killed herself…. How sick, to murder oneself. Ugh. It’s so… abrasive.

Fifty one — we called it “Fifty Fun.” I coined the term, but Mom thought Scott made it up. Scott & I laughed about that at the time. She just adored Scott; he reminded him a lot of herself, with his optimism and lighthearted demeanor. Now these similarities scare me about Scott sometimes… Isn’t that sad?

“She was supposed to be ‘fifty fun’ not ‘ fifty done,’”I’ve often repeated to myself this year.

Grief rips apart one’s sense of time and space. It’s been almost a year since my mom died, but it feels like it’s been a decade. Others think the year went by fast. It’s seemed like an eternity. Pieces of me feel like I never had a Mom — I feel so far from her, it’s like she was part of someone else’s life. It couldn’t possibly been my life.

The sun and the moon and the tides testify to time’s reality, but it’s simultaneously a construct. A way to measure our days, with seasons to mark the harvests and the plentiful and the droughts.

Time moves quickly when we enjoy our lives, slowly when we’re bored, and halts when we’re suffering.

Suffering refines and illuminates what matters, while healing ensures one concludes with the right perspective.

It seems as though nothing matters when one’s suffering. For example — from my skewed and insecure perspective — nothing I’ve done matters.

It didn’t matter that I loved Patrick.

It didn’t matter that I loved my Momma.

It doesn’t matter that I love my grandparents.

It doesn’t matter that I loved my former pastors.

My kindness and my love, in the end, didn’t matter to any of them. They’re still gone. They’re still dead, in one way or another.

The letters I wrote them didn’t matter. My forgiveness doesn’t matter. My kindness doesn’t matter.

I can do all the “right” things and remain punished by others’ decisions. In a sense, nothing I do matters.

Nothing I did matters.

They chose this, they did this, and nothing I did deserved that.

So… nothing I do matters.

* * * *

And yet… it all matters. Maybe it didn’t matter to them, maybe it did in some ways, but ultimately it didn’t.

Healing reminds me that it all mattered — it all matters.

I’ve experienced how much kindness matters. Again and again and again, people extend kindness and grace and support, and others’ actions matters. If others’ kindness and cruelty matter, mine does too.

Many have said that my words matter. Sometimes it’s difficult to see how one’s actions matter when he or she experiences so much pain because of another’s actions.

Sorrow rips apart time and space, too. How hard it is, then, to see one’s importance and brilliance in a world clouded with such potent pains.

* * * *

She was beautiful, she was real, she was my Momma.

She loved me, but that didn’t matter either. It did and it didn’t.