I still mother them….

On July 14th, it will be nine years.

Three thousand two hundred and eighty-eight days since Vincent died.

I still remember talking to him the night before. I still remember the last time I saw him. I still remember phone conversations that seemed ordinary at the time but became priceless after he was gone.

And after all these years, I still spend time wondering why that night was different.

Why that night?

I know there are no answers. I know that if there were, I would have found them by now. But grief doesn’t care much about logic. Sometimes it just keeps asking the same questions.

I think about Vincent.

And I think about Gabriella.

The night before she died, I was at my auction. She called and wanted to chat. Nothing urgent. Nothing dramatic. Just one of those everyday conversations between a mother and her daughter.

And I told her I was busy.

I’d call her tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Such a simple word.

The truth is, I fully intended to call her back. I wasn’t dismissing her. I wasn’t choosing something else over her. I was just in the middle of something and assumed there would be another phone call, another conversation, another tomorrow.

But for both of my children, those tomorrows never came.

Not one more phone call.

Not one more conversation.

Not one more chance to say, “I love you.”

And if I’m honest, I think about that a lot.

Not because I think one phone call would have changed what happened.

Not because I believe I could have fixed it.

I think about it because that’s what grieving parents do.

We replay moments.

We revisit conversations.

We remember missed calls.

We hold on to the ordinary because ordinary is all we ever wanted back.

So many parents are walking around carrying the same thing.

A text they didn’t answer right away.

A visit they postponed.

A call they meant to return.

A conversation they thought could wait until tomorrow.

And then tomorrow never comes.

I think about all the people we’ve lost since Vincent.

I think about my two nephews.

I think about Deanna.

I think about Cam and the sister and parents who miss him every single day.

I think about the people in my life who have relapsed this year.

I think about all the families who have joined a club none of us ever wanted to belong to.

And I think about how, when my phone rings late at night, a part of me still freezes.

Because once you’ve gotten that call, you never completely stop expecting another one.

Grief changes the way you hear a ringing phone.

It changes the way you read a text message.

It changes the way your heart reacts when someone says, “Can you call me?”

And then there’s the guilt.

The guilt of standing in Gabriella’s funeral line, hugging someone I love dearly and saying the words that were sitting in my heart.

“You can’t relapse and die. I can’t do this again.”

I’ve thought about those words a lot.

Part of me feels guilty for saying them.

I know recovery doesn’t work that way.

I know I can’t love someone sober.

I know I can’t save people simply because I need them to stay alive.

But standing there, after burying my second child, I wasn’t speaking as an advocate. I wasn’t speaking as the Executive Director of Face the Facts. I wasn’t speaking as someone who understands addiction and recovery.

I was speaking as a mom.

A mom whose heart had been shattered twice.

A mom who was looking at someone she loved and realizing she didn’t have another funeral left in her.

I don’t know if I have another one in my soul.

I don’t know if I have it in me to stand in another receiving line.

To pick out another urn.

To watch another family collapse under the weight of a loss that changes everything.

And maybe that’s where the guilt comes from.

Not because I said it.

But because I meant it.

Because in that moment, what came out wasn’t judgment.

It was fear.

It was heartbreak.

It was love.

Nine years later, I still worry.

I still pray.

I still answer the phone.

And sometimes I still hold my breath when it rings.

Because I know what waits on the other side of some phone calls.

I know what it feels like to have your world split in two.

I know what it feels like to hear news that changes your life forever.

Three thousand two hundred and eighty-eight days later, Vincent is still loved.

Gabriella is still loved.

And every person we’ve lost along the way is still loved too.

Maybe that’s the hardest part of all.

Love never gets smaller.

The list of people you carry just gets longer.

And so many parents are carrying those same lists.

Remembering the last phone call.

Remembering the last hug.

Remembering the tomorrow that never came.

Three thousand two hundred and eighty-eight days later, I still carry my son.

Eighty days after losing Gabriella, I still carry my daughter.

And I always will.

Because that’s what parents do.

We carry them.

We carry all of them. 💜