I still mother them….

I know today’s a heavy day for you. Here’s a blog written in the voice you’ve been shaping over the past few months.

Nine Years

Nine years.

It’s such a strange number because it sounds like a lifetime, and yet there are mornings when it still feels like yesterday. People think time has a way of making grief smaller. I don’t think that’s true. I think time just teaches you how to carry it differently. Some days it sits quietly beside you. Other days it grabs your hand before your feet even hit the floor and reminds you exactly what day it is.

Today is one of those days.

Nine years ago, my phone rang, and the world I knew ended. Vincent was twenty-three years old. A son. A brother. An uncle. A friend. A young man who made people laugh, loved deeply, and fought a disease that ultimately took his life. He was never defined by his addiction, and he will never be defined by the way he died.

This year feels different.

Maybe because his sister is with him now.

There is comfort in believing they found each other. I picture them laughing the way siblings do, rolling their eyes at me because I’m still crying, probably telling me to stop worrying so much. A mother’s heart doesn’t retire because her children die. I still mother them. I always will.

The beautiful thing is that love doesn’t have an expiration date.

I see Vincent every time Adriano smiles. I hear him when old stories get told around the dinner table. I feel him every time another family reaches out through Face the Facts looking for hope on the worst day of their lives. His life still matters. His story still matters. Because every time we tell it, maybe another family doesn’t have to live this one.

As Overdose Awareness Month approaches, you’ll see more faces on my page. More names. More stories. Not because we live in our grief, but because we refuse to let the people we love disappear into statistics. Every single number was somebody’s child. Somebody’s sibling. Somebody’s favorite person.

Nine years later, I still miss him.

I still wish I could hug him one more time.

I still wonder who he would have become.

But I also still believe that love is stronger than death. That telling their stories changes hearts. That compassion saves lives. And that dead people do not recover, which is exactly why we keep fighting for those who still can.

So today, I’ll say his name.

Vincent.

I’ll smile through the tears. I’ll tell another story. I’ll love him the only way I know how.

Because that’s what mothers do.

Always.