As we have passed and celebrated my Emily’s 3rd birthday I can’t help but think about my own mom. You celebrate birthdays and you celebrate birth but there’s nothing like going through a loss to make you face your own mortality. I’ve been thinking about mom a lot these past few days, its been over a year and a half since she passed and I was thinking about her a lot yesterday and honestly miss having her to talk to. She was my biggest supporter and encourager and my role model. She taught me so much and I wasn’t ready to lose her, but I don’t think you can ever be ready to lose someone.

Experiencing loss as a Christian offers you solace, you know that they are in a better place and are much happier than we are back here, but as humans we are also trying to learn to cope with being left behind.

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

John 16:22

There’s a confliction with being happy that they are in a better place but at the same time sad about them being gone. For a long time after she passed the girls would ask on a nightly basis to see pictures and videos of her. Now, as time goes back the pictures get older and there’s no more new ones. No more new memories can be created with her, all we can do is think back fondly on the memories we have made and that pushes me to make more memories together with my girls while I am still here. To show them, to teach them, to take more pictures with them. I strive to become their role models the way that my mom was for me.

My mother is so full of joy and life. I am her child. And that is better than being the child of anyone else in the world. 
- Maya Angelou