March 23rd, 2021 marked the twenty-year anniversary of my mother’s death. Twenty years! How is it possible for a loss to be so distant yet feel so fresh? In a tearful conversation with my grandmother last year, she asked me, “When are you going to get over your mom dying, Mak?” “Never” I responded indignantly. And I meant it and still do.

As cliché as it might sound, grief IS a lifelong journey. And for those of us who experienced painful losses in early life, we re-grieve as we hit different developmental stages and as important life milestones happen without our person. Sometimes it’s the obvious ones, I missed my mom at my graduations, when I moved into my dorm, and I wanted to be able to call her when I accepted my first “big kid” job.

But sometimes unexpected events will trigger that tsunami of emotions. When the COVID19 pandemic first hit and the world went into lockdown, many of my 20-something-year-old peers moved back in with their parents. In that scary and confusing time, home was where they wanted to retreat to. And a home in that way wasn’t something I had. Although I had great supports around, I felt lonely and deeply missed my mom in those early lockdown months.

Other times it’s not been my own milestones that triggered the knock down grief waves. This year my older sister got married and just a week prior my younger sister had a son. Speaking at my big sis’s wedding was a roller coaster, how does one put words to all I wanted to express? And how unfair is it that my mom didn’t get to be there, and didn’t get to meet her first grandchild. These beautiful moments in my sister and I’s lives will always have the added complexity of heart wrenching grief within them.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 20 years as a griever, it’s that in order for that grief wave to pass, you’ve got to learn to ride it. Trying to ignore, distract, or otherwise shove down the emotions never got me far. I end up like a pressure cooker with my lid ready to fly off at the smallest slight. I’ve learned to plan ahead for how to support myself on her birthday and death anniversary, and my sisters will be the first to tell you that I let myself cry it out at important events.

Grief, and the importance of letting oneself grieve, is so important to me that I’ve managed to make a career out of it. After graduating from undergrad at the University of Washington I went on to earn my Master’s Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I spent two years working in community mental health after graduation before finding my way into the Safe Crossings Program, a pediatric grief support program that provides no cost grief counseling to any grieving child or teen in King County. Each day I get to work with bereaved families as they develop their own relationship with grief and discover how they are going to invest in their new reality, forever changed by their loss.

Part of my Safe Crossings job is to serve as the Clinical Lead for Camp Erin King County, a no cost summer camp for children and teens grieving a significant death loss. It’s pretty special getting to serve in this capacity – I actually attended Camp Erin as a child three years after my mom died. Camp Erin was pivotal in my youth for teaching me that grief was a normal response to loss. Having space to talk about complex grief emotions and meet other children who had lost parents had a major impact on me. It’s amazing to now get to help create this space for other children. While the work can be difficult, it never fails to feel fulfilling, and I love that I get to honor my mom’s legacy in the process.

And this kind of work is my mom’s legacy. My mother was a force. A first-generation college student, she went on to get her Masters in teaching and became a 4th grade teacher, a career she poured herself into for the few years she got to work. Her passion and deep capacity to love left a mark on this world that will leave ripples for much longer than her thirty-five years of life. I’m fortunate to have received her love and nurturance for my first six years of life.

I spent much of my adolescence and early adulthood grappling with not wanting to be defined by my difficult early years. While I believe this grappling was necessary to building my own identity, I’m grateful to have emerged from it with a more balanced perspective. My mother’s death does not define who I am, and I still shudder when people use words like “resilient” to describe me. “Resilient” feels shallow to me. There is so much more to me than a word that predicates itself on suffering I had no control over. So, while her death doesn’t define me, the woman she was and the loss I grieve is woven into all aspects of my life and choices. And for me that isn’t being stuck in grief, it’s a way in which I remain connected to the woman who brought me into this world and whose spirit cheers me on each day. I will never “get over” my grief, instead I’ll continue riding the grief waves as they come and invest in my reality that will forever be influenced by my mother’s life and death.