Dear Mom, Can you believe it’s been 14 years? I’ve lived almost the entire lifetime we had together in years without you. Sometimes it feels like it happened yesterday. Then it feels like 100 years…

Earlier this month I went to the weddings of two of my closest friends. I’ve known them since I was 18. There are four of us in our group. Girls that traveled Europe together as…

Dear Marissa, This letter isn’t for Mom, it’s for you. It’s so you can see how far you’ve come. A record of how proud I am of you. That this space isn’t just for healing…

Dear Mom, Seventy. What a number. You would’ve either loved this birthday or absolutely hated it. I wonder what insane thing you’d do to, “prove to everyone you weren’t old.” Not sure how you’d beat…

Dear Mom, Yesterday was the 13th anniversary of your death. In the week leading up to it, I was a ball of anger and fear. Every small thing put me on edge. The first drafts…

Dear Mom, You were such a great gift giver. Each gift you selected had the perfect mix of sentimentality and functionality. Somehow, you could pick something someone needed before they even realized it. At times,…

Dear Mom, Every anniversary brings different feelings. In the first years it was fear. The fear that I wouldn’t make it past another August 14th. Being afraid the emotions would drown me because I hadn’t…

Grief is lying on the couch scrolling on your phone when all of a sudden a random video, photo, article on the internet pulls the floor out from underneath you. You’re plunged back into the…

Dear Mom, As the years go by I find myself longing for a different part of you. I knew a superb mother who always put her children first. She worked east coast hours at 5am…