A Post About Dead Moms (Relax, I have one, so I can say it)

I miss my mom.

My mother died over twenty years ago.

And I am still finding her.

In the ache.
In the air.
In the things I whisper into the kitchen light when no one else is home.

She made Easter magic.
Real magic.
Lace bonnets and handmade bunny suits.
Hundreds of dyed eggs scattered across a field of shrieking kids.
She didn’t just host the town egg hunt
she became the heartbeat of it.

She gave love the way other people breathe:
freely, effortlessly, constantly.

And I miss her.

Not in a softened, “time heals all” kind of way.
Not today.

Today, I miss her so hard it squeezes from the inside out.
Like your ribs folding in on themselves.
Like your heart just got ambushed by a memory that still knows your name.

I miss her in the middle of doing things I’m proud of,
because she should be here to see them.

I’ve been writing books.
Building a home from words and wonder.
Creating things that feel sacred.

And all I want is to hear her say,
“Oh Jen… I knew you would.”

But I can’t call her.
I can’t send her the link.
I can’t hear her laugh or tell me which part made her cry.

So I’m crying for both of us.

Crying because no one cheers like your mother does.
Because she was always the first to show up and the last to leave.
Because I was always hers.

And because some grief doesn’t whisper,
it roars.

She used to say,
“The more you cry, the less you pee.”
No one ever really knew what the hell she meant,
but it always made us laugh through the snot and the tears.
Because she believed in a big cry.
She knew how to ride the waves.

She is why I love vintage.
She is why I save chipped things.
Why I believe the worn and weathered are worth something.
Why I think stories live in objects and memories live in light.

She would have loved this moment,
this messy, marvelous, hard-won moment
where I’m finally doing the thing.

The big thing.
The real thing.
The thing she always saw in me, even when I couldn’t.

Maybe love like that doesn’t die at all.
Maybe it just changes shape,
and lives in the fire we carry forward.

If you're aching today...
If Easter brings more memories than candy...
If you're holding it together with duct tape and whispered stories...
I'm with you.

Let it out.
All of it.
(You’ll pee less, apparently.)

With all my heart,
Jen