Mother’s Day, 2025

I paid my mom the best tribute I could and placed the letters that I wrote to her while dying into a book. As many know, the publisher released the memoir on May 2nd, 2025. Since that day, and before as readers were receiving the book, there has been a plethora of messages coming to my Instagram and Facebook page. Some of those messages are in person in the hallways of my place of work, or by text from people who know or have known me. I am grateful to them all for taking the time to read my emotions, my love, to my dying mother. The book is doing what I hoped, but more importantly what my mother had hoped, and that is connecting with others who are grieving. 

Grief is complex. There is no right way. As I stood in front of a crowd on Thursday, May 8th for an official book launch, I said to everyone there that, “Grief is love. We grieve because we have loved and been loved.” I am grateful for my mother’s love, and I am grateful that I also had someone to love so much for fifty-three years. Love truly is the greatest gift we can give and receive. Love last. That is why grief lasts and never goes away. We simply learn how to muddle through our days without the person we lost, keeping them in our memory. We melt at a song, the smell of food we once shared with them, or a picture that we come across. Grief ebbs and flows, leaving us smiling one moment at a story we remember of our loved one, and within that same breath we can break down into an ocean of tears that leaves us shaken and feeling daunted in disbelief. 

Near my mother’s birthday on March 13th, I found myself in the emergency room. They checked me for a heart attack and stroke. The outcome, as I sat with the compassionate doctor standing near me, showing empathy as I broke down weeping, was that my symptoms were from anxiety and grief. It overwhelmed me, taking away my ability to reason for a short while, and then after my test results all came back normal, I had to accept that it was once again the pain of loss that entered my mind and body that day. It was the power of grief that gave me physical symptoms that mimicked a stroke. It was the power of love that helped me stand strong and leave the hospital, reflecting once again on this journey that I am on and where I am headed. I decided long ago that I have two people, well three actually, that I needed to live an authentic life for. One is my wife, the other my mother, and the third is me. Yes, I have tried desperately to live the life I want to, on my terms, and absorb it all like I did that cold, glacier water in the backcountry of Norway. 

I miss my mom. I will miss her for the remainder of my time here on earth. She deserves my tears. Her love saved me many times throughout my life. It was her love that made me strong when I felt like throwing in the towel. It was her love that protected me from a man that did not love me. It is her love that now makes me ache and carry a heaviness in my chest. My mom has earned my grieving. 

For those sons and daughters out there, if your mother is still here, hug them with all of your might. Tell them, tell them with all of your heart, how much you love them and why. For those of you who have lost your mother like I have, sit quietly with them in your thoughts. Talk to them, write to them, because I guarantee they are listening. They still feel your love and you feel theirs. If you have a damaged relationship with your mother, either try to repair it, or if it was too much to bear, like my father and my relationship, then at least find forgiveness. Hate and anger will wreck your soul and blur your vision. Do not allow that in your life. Bring love, empathy, and compassion to the relationship you have with your mother, realizing that they are impermanent. 

There will come a time, if you live a long enough life, that you will grieve. You will sit in disbelief, tears, sadness, and anger. You will talk to ghosts and tell them what you didn’t have the courage enough to when they were living, or you will update them on the journey you are on. Tell them daily that you love them. They are near. 

Grief connects us all. Happy Mother’s Day!