For a long time, the words of the old song “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” would play on repeat inside my head. At 25, I was quite certain that everyone else still had their mother, that I was the only person who was living with an enormous Mom-sized hole in their life. I had questions I needed to ask and couldn’t, advice I was desperate to hear, stories of her year old grandson I ached to share.

I would get into my car every morning and cry all the way to work. And I would repeat the ritual on the ride home. It was the only private time I had, the only safe place to grieve and ache, to be angry at her, at God, at cancer, at loss. And, even now, decades later, missing her is a physical ache and an empty space that can never be filled.

Of course, I have since learned that I am not the only person who lost their mother too young. And that losing someone you love before their time is terrible, beyond terrible. It changes you forever, taking away your innocence and your belief that the people you love will always be in your life.

What I have come to understand, as life has gone on, is that we all suffer losses, we all experience grief. That is part of the human condition. But we grieve because we love. We grieve because we had a relationship that mattered, that we valued. And I have learned to reframe my sorrow and loss by focusing, instead, on gratitude. How fortunate I am to have had a mother who loved and accepted and supported me. How grateful I am to still remember the feel of her warm arms and the soft scent of her favorite perfume. She is no longer at the other end of the phone but she is always with me, in my thoughts and in my heart, in the reflections of her that I see in her grandchildren, in the person that I am and the person I hope to become. Her heart was always full and her love, which I feel to this day, helps me to continue to fill my full heart.`