I have lived with grief for a while. Lost family and friends, people who shaped pieces of who I am. I gave a eulogy for my father, eight years ago, and barely made it through. Let's see if I can finish this one.

My mother’s name was Cynthia Lynn. She was a complex person, and there are parts of her I’ll never fully understand, as parents are all mysteries to their children. They help shape your life, and so you are always discovering parts of them. The parts of my mother I knew - she was strong and fierce when she chose to be, but soft and gentle in her presence too. She didn’t like the spotlight of attention, but she did connect to others vulnerably, deeply. She had me when she as 25. Her father had gotten her a job as a union laborer. Her parents had their difficulties, and that impacted her, as it does to us all. I could see ways it seemed to have made her stronger, and ways it had made her more fragile.

I’m 42 now, and in my childhood memories of her, she seems so young. She was so young. I looked up at her and she shined her radiant smile down on me. The magic bright smile I see on my children now. Reaching down and holding my hands, dancing with me to oldies music playing on my father’s old stereo. Passionate, full of love. Taking me to sports practices, watching at games, pushing gently but firmly with school. I think hopeful about giving us something that hadn’t been given to her, some life she hadn’t been able to live in her time.

She was a good mother, and she loved me.

She had her own sorrows and aches. Some I knew, and some I only guessed. There were years where illness made everything harder.

I had the privilege of being with her near her end. By grace, I was nearby when things turned. We sat together in that hospital room and talked deeply for the first time in a while, for hours. We shared stories and we shared silence. It was not the ending I would have chosen, but I got to say goodbye, and she got to hear it. I am grateful for that much.

Nothing prepares you for losing your mother. Her heartbeat was the first sound you knew. Her breathing steadied you, before you even had a name. She whispered the world into being for you. Her hands held you through fevers and fears. All through history, boys become men and lose their mothers. They always have and they always will, we all do. This hollow ache I feel is ancient and human. And it means I loved her deeply and was blessed to have her.

Grief is what love becomes after the loss. The grief I possess now feels endless and sacred. It is all the love I didn’t get to say, moments I still wish we had. Everyone handles grief in their own way, but I am particularly bad at it, I think.

But I know already from my grief from losing my parents, it is best to sit with it and allow myself to feel it. This love that has become grief. The only way I can have her now is by letting myself feel the pain of grief. Rumi said, “the wound is the place where the Light enters you.” This is my experience, too. As I allow myself to feel that pain of grief, with time, she is with me. She is with me, not as a ghost or a memory. I feel her presence in my chest, I talk with her. I hear her laugh echoing, and I can see her smile still. Letting myself feel the grief, the love, I reach into the mystery saying, “Mom, I still need you. I always will.” And she is with me. You are with me.