It’s been ten years without her. So much has happened. It feels like all of the most significant things have happened in the last ten years. They have been both the hardest and best years of my life. But she was not there for any of it. It seems we never stop wanting our mothers. In the hardship, I miss her comfort and love. In the victories, I miss her laughter and joy and incredible capacity to celebrate. These years have brought more death and grief, health problems, broken dreams, and disappointment. But in this time, I have also seen almost every single one of my childhood dreams and hopes come to pass (albeit it in a more complicated, different but beautiful way).

Dreams of how I wanted to spend my life, where and with whom, the work I dreamed of doing, the theology I believed in and wanted to live out, the places I wanted to go. Every one of these dreams I have held in my heart since I was a teenager or younger. And every one of them has grown into reality since she died. I have built the life I dreamed of as a teenager and it has been more painful and cost me more than I thought possible of soul and strength but it has been more beautiful and rich, deep and transformative than I could ever have imagined.

Every single one of these joys has been marked with the sorrow of her absence. Love and pain cannot be separated. We see this acutely in grief. Once we have lost a beloved, we will never again experience joy without sorrow, for in every joy we are aware of those who are not there to celebrate it with us. And the remarkable thing is, that our hearts grow into vessels that can hold both experiences and emotions at the same time. One of the heaviest sorrows to hold in the midst of my greatest joy has been becoming a mother to my own child without my mother here. Her greatest unrealised dream was to be a grandmother.  As I learn and figure out this journey, I often think of her navigating it on her own with two small children and how hard that must’ve been. I imagine what her life was like back then. And then every now and again I allow myself to imagine what her life would have been like now, had she lived. And the imaginings of possibilities of her with my child are so piercingly beautiful that I cannot bear to behold them another moment. And while I am filled anew with the sorrow of her absence, I am deeply, deeply grateful. The acute pain of what could have been is a result of how brilliant and magical what we had was. Every wave of grief is a moment I can be grateful that I got to be loved and raised and mothered by someone so exceptional, so full of love and joy and kindness that she remains in my heart so tangibly.

I recognise that I had opportunities because of the demographic I am from, but having opportunities does not mean seizing them. They do not guarantee perseverance, hustle and belief. I can wholeheartedly say it was her. Every dream I had, she helped me cultivate and pursue, strategize, and fight for. Though she did not get to see them come to pass, it is because of her faith in me and fierce perseverance as a single mother making a way for her children that I realised each one. In the time we had together she built into me all I needed to become (and am still becoming) the person I wanted to be.  So whilst I have missed her physical presence desperately, I have gotten to taste and see the fruit of the seeds she sowed into the garden of my heart, faith and identity. In that way her presence is most tangible and her fingerprints can be found everywhere. I only had twenty-two years with her, but they hold some of the best memories of my life, and they are the foundation on which I built the best memories that came afterwards. If grief and sorrow is the price of having had the privilege of being in her life, I would pay it every time.

I’m getting used to the pain in my chest as I bath my daughter and remember story time in the bath with my own mum or when we are on a walk in the mountains and I get a sudden image of how my mum would so enjoy the moment. Or knowing how my daughters beautiful face, non-stop dancing and uncontrollable belly laughs would delight her. Or when I watch grandmothers with their daughters and grandchildren and appreciate the joy of what a beautiful thing that is; to be alive and to love and to be.  I allow myself to let the pain move through my body, perhaps some tears need to flow. But I understand now that the pain is not something to avoid or remedy or resist. In many ways, it is no longer grief. It is gratitude. It is what we are left with when we loved someone so much who was so magically brilliant and wonderous that our bodies physically ache for them when we lose them, and that love and gift of time with them is something to be grateful for. It’s been ten years and the pain is still there. But now I know. The pain is gratitude. I can live with it. I can live in gratitude.