I still mother them….

Tuesday is Vincent’s ninth anniversary.

Nine years.

Some days it feels like yesterday. Other days it feels like I’ve lived a lifetime since I got that phone call.

People tell you time heals all wounds. I don’t think that’s true.

I think time teaches you how to carry them.

You learn how to laugh again. You go back to work. You celebrate birthdays. You make new memories. You find joy again.

But then a song comes on.

A smell catches you off guard.

A date on the calendar gets a little too close.

And just like that, your heart remembers.

Not because you haven’t healed.

Because love remembers.

I’ve learned healing isn’t forgetting.

Healing isn’t the absence of tears.

Healing isn’t pretending the people you love don’t still belong in your life.

Healing is learning to carry joy and heartbreak at the same time.

I think about Jesus after the resurrection. He could have erased every scar.

He didn’t.

The wounds remained.

Not because He wasn’t healed, but because they told the story of love.

That has stayed with me.

Maybe the wounds we carry aren’t proof that God hasn’t healed us.

Maybe they’re proof that we’ve survived what should have destroyed us.

Losing Vincent changed me.

Losing Gabriella changed me again.

I would give anything not to know this kind of grief. But because I do, I listen differently. I love differently. I show up differently. I don’t feel the need to fix people anymore. Sometimes the greatest gift we can give someone is simply being willing to sit beside them in their pain.

As Tuesday gets closer, I can feel my heart getting a little heavier.

That’s okay.

Grief still knocks.

The memories still visit.

The tears still come.

But they don’t own me.

God does.

There’s a difference.

What once took me completely under now brings me to my knees.

Not in defeat.

In prayer.

In gratitude.

In remembering.

God has never rushed my healing. He’s never expected me to “move on.” He’s walked beside me through every anniversary, every birthday, every holiday, and every ordinary day that suddenly wasn’t ordinary anymore.

If today your heart hurts because someone you love is missing, don’t think you’ve failed because you’re still grieving.

You’re farther down the road than you realize.

The tears may feel familiar, but you’re not the same person who first cried them.

This Tuesday I’ll remember my son. I’ll miss him just as much as I always have. I’ll wish I could hug him one more time. I’ll thank God that he’s no longer fighting the disease of addiction. I’ll thank Him that Vincent is with his sister.

And I’ll thank Him for making me their mom.

The ache is still there.

So is the love.

And so is God.

That’s what carries me.