It's been more than a year since my mother passed away.

I have more hope for the future, more good days than bad, more smiles than tears but the grief is still there.  Although I think of my mom often every day and miss her so much, I don't grieve every day.  I am grateful that I am no longer just surviving and finally at a point where I can thrive or try to thrive again.  But the grief still catches up with me.  Often in unexpected ways in surprising moments, I feel the wave of grief wash over me.

I don't shame myself for grieving her by telling myself that I need to move on or that it has been a year.  I grieve my mom because my love for her was so much.  Losing her has left such as large gaping hole so it would make sense that I grieve so deeply, so hard, often and perhaps even until the end of my own life.  By accepting and making room for grief, I am allowing myself permission to grieve and in ways, this softs the grieve for me.

With the busyness of the holidays and returning back to life, I didn't have time to grieve.  Or rather, I put the grief on the back burner.  And it caught up with me today.  I was in the shower getting ready for an important videocall when I started crying.  Initially, I told myself that I didn't have time to cry nor could show up to the call with red eyes.  But the grief had caught up and was there.  I asked my body what I needed and I knew, I needed to cry about mom.  So for 1-2 minutes, I cried.  I cried hard.  I told her I missed her and that I was scared that I was forgetting her voice, her smell and her love.  Then I got out of the shower.

I will never move on from my mom but I am learning to move forward with this grief by making room for it, by allowing it to catch up with me when it does and by tending to it.