I still mother them….

There are some things I still have not been ready to write about.

My grandchildren are one of them.

I don’t know if I am fully ready now, if I’m honest. Maybe there are some things that hurt so deeply and mean so much that finding words for them feels impossible. Maybe writing about them somehow makes all of this more real.

After Vincent died, Gianna saved me in ways she probably never even knew. There were days when grief swallowed me whole, when breathing felt heavy, when getting through the next hour felt impossible. And somehow, she would say something, need something, laugh at something, and remind me there was still life sitting right in front of me asking me to stay.

And maybe Adriano was meant to save me this time.

Maybe that sounds dramatic to people who have never lived through grief like this. But grief changes you. It steals pieces of you. It makes you question if you even know how to move through the world anymore. And then these little people you love more than your own life somehow stand in the middle of your wreckage and remind you there are still reasons to get up.

Maybe grandchildren are part of God’s backup plan for broken hearts.

I think grief can be selfish sometimes. Not because we mean for it to be, but because it consumes everything. It makes the world smaller. The sadness gets so loud that sometimes it drowns out everything else. But then there are basketball games to watch, birthdays to plan, hugs that need giving, stories that need listening to, and somehow you remember there are still people here who need all the love you still have left to give.

That does not mean grief hurts any less.

Some days, if I am really honest, I am angry at my daughter.

That feels terrible to say out loud, but grief is not pretty and neither is the truth.

Today I hung up the phone with the medical examiner’s office after asking again where in the hell the cause of death and death certificate are. Eleven weeks. Still waiting. Still unanswered questions. Part of me wants to know every single detail. Part of me never wants to know. I keep asking myself what difference does it make? She is still gone. No answer changes that. No paperwork changes that. No sentence typed onto a death certificate brings her back.

And still, somehow, I wait.

My mind has been all over the place today.

A friend of mine has a son-in-law on a ventilator. His daughter graduates tonight. I cannot stop thinking about them. About what impending loss feels like. The waiting. The fear. The bargaining in your own head. The not knowing if life is about to split into a before and after. Maybe that is why my heart feels so heavy today. Maybe grief recognizes grief before it even arrives.

It has just been one of those restless days.

Today I found myself thinking about a little blue diver my son had for most of his life. One of those little things that probably looked meaningless to everyone else but somehow held an entire story inside of it. When Vincent died, he still had it. Something about that wrecked me and comforted me all at once. That little blue diver somehow survived all the years, all the chaos, all the hard things.

And when the time felt right, I passed my little blue diver on to someone I love with my whole heart.

Maybe because some things are meant to keep swimming.

Maybe today that little diver feels symbolic.

Because I know how to swim.

God knows I have been thrown into the deepest waters imaginable and somehow, some way, I am still here. I know how to survive. I know how to tread water. I know how to dive into the hard things because life has forced me to.

But today?

Today I do not want to dive.

Today I just want to float around in the pool of life for a little while and not think about anything. Not death certificates. Not cause of death. Not ventilators. Not grief. Not fear. Not all the ways life changes in a single phone call.

Just float.

And maybe that has to be enough for today.

Maybe surviving does not always look brave.

Maybe sometimes surviving looks like floating.