The good that comes from grief is hard to see when you’re drowning in it.
But over time, I’ve realized my mom left me a gift.
It took me years to understand. For the longest time, I thought I was just surviving. That I was wasting the life she gave me, the lessons she could never speak, the love I never got to grow old with.
But now I see, I was given something sacred:
The ability to guide others through the darkness.
The wisdom of what it means to lose your safe place, your protector, and still choose to be a good person, choose to live.
That’s not just survival. That’s a calling.
I think she’d be proud.
Proud of how I’m maneuvering through this life without a map, without a mother’s arms to fall into.
Proud that I tried anyway.
That I kept going even when I didn’t want to.
Proud that I didn’t end it, even when it felt like the only way out.
There is good that comes from grief.
It doesn’t erase the pain.
But it transforms it.
And in doing so, it transforms me.
