I still mother them….

May 4, 2026My first post.I don’t even know if I’m doing this right. I think I’m doing it more for me than anything… so I can go back and remember. And maybe, just maybe, it reaches one other mom somewhere who feels like this.July 14, 2017.5:30 in the morning.A phone call from Vincent’s father telling me my son was dead.I remember thinking that night… there’s nothing worse than this. There is nothing worse than burying your child. He was 23, but he was my everything. My secret keeper. My silly guy. I truly believed I had watched him come back from addiction. In my uneducated mind, I thought he was cured.Until he was dead.Fast forward to April 3, 2026.My 12-year-old grandson called me and told me I had to come get him because the police lady said his mom was dead.If I live to be a million years old, I will never forget those words.I will never forget the ride home from the police station. Trying to act like anything about that moment was normal for an hour and a half. Walking into my house and watching it fill up again… with people I love… people who love me… all of us standing there trying to figure out what to say.Again.Once again, I sat in the front row.Once again, I listened to my own words being read by someone else because I didn’t have it in me to stand up and say them.And now here we are. One month later.And I’m still sitting here asking… what now?What is normal?Is there even such a thing as normal anymore?What do you do when people ask how they can help and you don’t even know what you need?When you wish people would never leave… but also wish they wouldn’t knock on the door?When you’ve packed up your daughter’s life into bins?When you find yourself smelling her clothes, just trying to catch even the smallest piece of her?What is normal… and now what do we do?How do you pick up the pieces after the second time?I don’t have answers.I’m 59 years old, and 30 days ago I buried my 35-year-old daughter.Almost eight years ago, I buried my 23-year-old son.This is the part no one talks about.This is the aftermath.This is the aftershock.If you want to follow along, you can.This isn’t going to be pretty.This isn’t going to be inspiring.This is going to be real.As I try to figure out what’s next.