June 15 marks the anniversary of my mother’s death, more than 40 years since the last time I saw her wise, deep brown eyes, since I leaned in to kiss her cheek and smelled her favorite “Youth Dew,” and felt the grasp of her warm fingers. I was too young to believe she was really going to die and too mature to know that she was not and I ping ponged wildly between denial and fear.

She was 62 and I was 25, both of us too young to be separated but life, and breast cancer, clearly had other plans. And, while I still miss her every day, my grief has evolved. In the early months, I would drive to work, sobbing all the way. I’d wipe my face and go on with my day. I’d repeat the same ritual on my way home, pain filling me so thoroughly that it was sometimes impossible to breathe.

Almost all of the milestones in my life are ones that she missed. Other than my oldest son, she never saw her grandchildren. She wasn’t there for birthdays or weddings, for losses or for triumphs. Yet she was, and is, always there with me in the tears that lurk just behind my eyes and the ache that fills my chest.

In our tradition, we light a candle of the anniversary of our loved one’s death and we recite a special prayer. I have never missed, never forgotten, never skipped that ritual of memory and enduring love.

But this year I will be away on June 15. We are traveling with friends and will be far away from anywhere that I could light a candle and let it burn for 24 hours. Yes, I could have found a battery-operated way to do that, I am sure. But, this year, just this year, the candle will burn only in my heart. This year my mother will walk the streets of new places with me, doing the kinds of things we always talked about doing and never had time to do.

Loss endures. It is always with us and we feel it. What matters is that we remember that the love also endures and that love helps us to, always, fill our full hearts.