💛 The Love That Still Lives: A Letter to My Mama, 24 Years Later 💛

🦋 “I remember her smile and the way she used to laugh in butterflies” 🦋

🌱 It’s been 24 years since my mother passed away from breast cancer and today is her birthday. She would have been 84 years old but sadly she only made 60 trips around the sun. I was 25 when she transitioned …just old enough to know that I needed her, but not old enough to have fully known her.

She was my best friend. My first love. My most trusted place. And when she left, the silence she left behind became part of my story.

Now I find myself in midlife..mothering my own daughters, healing through generational layers, discovering new versions of myself..and the ache for her absence has changed, but never disappeared.

There are questions I still wish I could ask her. Conversations I wish we could have had. I long to know her not just as my mom, but as a woman.

This love note is one I wrote through tears of missing her. It’s for her.

And also maybe, in some way, it’s also for you…if you’ve ever longed for a mother’s embrace, or found yourself missing someone so deeply it lives in your soul. 🌱

💌 A Love Note for My Mama 💌

Hi Mama,

It’s been a whole life time it seems since I’ve held your hand,

and still, some days, I reach for you like you’re in the next room.

I was really still so young when you left.

Just a girl trying to be a woman..

and loosing you felt like losing the map to myself.

You were my best friend.

My safe space.

The one who made the world feel steady.

Now i’m here..

a mother, a woman in the thick of midlife,

and all I want is for you to sit with me,

see me,

hold space for me.

There’s a version of you I never got to meet.

The woman behind the mama.

and I grieve that..too.

I wish I had known your stories.

What made you laugh when no one was watching.

What dreams you tucked away.

What you were like before the world asked you to be strong all the time.

Sometimes, I look at my daughters..

Your granddaughters, Mama..

and I see you.

It breaks my heart that the two littles never got to feel your arms..

hear your voice..

or sit wrapped in your love.

But I promise you,

they know you.

They know you because I carry you into every hug I give them.

You live in our softness.

You live in the way I love.

Still..

Sometimes the loneliness hits different..

Especially now, in this season of becoming.

Midlife has a way of peeling back the layers,

and there are days I feel like a little girl again..

watching out the window and waiting for you to come home..

missing her mama..

craving her comfort..

longing for her wisdom.

I wish I could sit with you and tell you everything..

Ask you everything..

Laugh with you…

Cry with you..

Just…be with..you..

But instead, I talk to you in the quiet..

I write you in the margins of my days..

Sit in silence with you in my prayers..

See you in the moon..

I look for you in old photos, in mirrors, in the way my daughters smile.

And even though you are physically gone..

You still show up..

In all the ways that matter..

I love you Mama,..

Then, Now, Always..

Love your daughter 💛

🌺 Reflections 🌺

Writing this wasn’t easy, but grief and love..they live side by side in me.

If you’re reading this and you’ve lost your. mother, or someone who felt like one…please

know I see you. You’re not alone in this kind of longing.

There’s something deeply sacred about mothering without a mother. It’s brave.

It’s exhausting. And it’s full of moments where you wish someone would just hold space for you.

So here’s your gentle reminder:

Even when it hurts.. even when it feels like no one understands..you are still held.

Still loved.

Still making your way, beautifully, imperfectly, and never alone.

Thank you for reading this love note to my mama.

If it touched something in your heart, feel free to share it, save it, or pass it on to someone else

who might need it.

And if you want to share a memory of your mom, or my mom, or the mother figure you miss, I’d love to

hear about her in the comments. Let’s hold space for each other.

With love, Kell 🕊️

🎵 And often, when the ache gets to loud, I close my eyes and go back to the passenger seat of her 1969 mustang. Fleetwood Mac playing, “Landslide” echoing through the wind like a lullaby. I remember looking at her..this radiant, heartbroken woman..singing with tears streaming down her cheeks..and I wondered, even then, who made her cry like that? What story lived in that song? I didn’t know then and i’m not certain I know now…but what I do know is this…It was beautiful, she was beautiful and i’ll carry those moments with me, forever. 🎵