Two Years Without Her

Two Years Without Her: Why the Second Year of Grief Hurts Even More

It’s been two years.

Two years since the world shifted. Since the axis of my life tilted in a way I still haven’t fully recovered from. Since I held my mother’s hand for the last time and whispered, “I love you,” hoping it would echo loud enough to follow her wherever she was going.

Grief has a way of bending time. Some days, it feels like it just happened. Like I could still call her and hear her voice on the other end. Other days, it feels like I’ve lived a hundred lifetimes since that goodbye—each one shaped by the ache of her absence.

People talk about how the first year is the hardest. And yes, the first year was brutal—chaotic and raw and full of pain that sat on my chest like a weight I couldn’t push off.

But what I wasn’t prepared for was how the second year would feel.

Because if the first year is about surviving the shock… the second year is about sitting with the reality. This is the new "normal." Without her.

The second year is lonelier. Quieter. The world assumes you’ve “healed,” when really, you’re just beginning to feel the full weight of what forever without them actually means. The numbness fades. The distraction of “firsts” passes. And all that’s left is the truth:

She’s still gone. And somehow, I’m still here.

I Still Remember That Week Like It Was Yesterday

I think about the week she went into the hospital all the time. It’s frozen in my memory in a way that feels both crystal clear and impossible to process. She didn’t want to go. I was staying with her, and the fight to get her to seriously consider going to the hospital was alot. She hadn't eaten in days, she was hardly drinking, she needed to at least get some fluids. Somehow, I think she knew that if she went in, she wouldn’t be coming home.

I was so unimpressed with the hospital. We sat in that crowded, loud waiting room for hours. My mom, sick and fragile, had to push two chairs together just to lay down and she was so uncomfortable—her belly swollen like she was nine months pregnant. She was immunocompromised, tired. No privacy. No real care. Just time ticking by as she lay there, in pain, in public. But, she wasn't "urgent" enough to get a room. She didn’t get an actual room until well into the early morning. The first few days weren’t great, but we were clinging to optimism like it was a lifeline. She was supposed to go to Cleveland to see if she qualified for a clinical trial that next Monday. That was what we were clinging to. I remember her asking the doctor on day 1 if she'd be out of the hospital by then.

But then things shifted.

By day 3 or 4 the doctors shifted to talking about end of life care. I don't know if we missed their messages about that before, or if we just weren't picking up on the fact that this was it, but it seemed like a shock. We thought she was just staying at the hospital for a bit, not that she was never leaving......Just like that. No warm-up. No gradual prep. One minute we were hoping she'd be discharged, and the next, we were planning how to help her die with dignity. I can’t even describe the shock of that moment. The disbelief. The desperation to understand how it escalated so quickly. The ache of knowing we were about to say goodbye without ever really being ready. We were trying to manage her pain, while not over-medicating her, and making decisions that I still struggle with today.

We tried to make the most of those final days. We sang to her. We shared stories about her, with her. Friends and family visited. We got her a cheeseburger to eat, because that's what she asked for. She was so funny - her filter was completely gone and I feel like we got a glimpse of what teenage Heather was like. Still stubborn and headstrong, but with no filter she was SASSY. We cried—a lot. And we loved her with everything we had left. The last moments of her life will forever be etched into my memory. She hadn't been awake or coherent for a while. but my sisters and I were standing at the end of her bed. She started opening her eyes, and she stared straight at us. We did a little scramble and moved to the top of her bed and she looked at all of us. I don't know what she was trying to say to us, but I told her it was ok and the last thing I said to her was I would take care of Court & Tay. Then, she was gone.

On Sunday, May 7th, 2023—on a quiet Sunday evening, just like her dad—she finally let go.

What Hurts More: The Slow Goodbye or the Sudden One?

I’ve asked myself this so many times: What’s worse? Watching your parent slowly deteriorate before your eyes? Or getting a phone call that changes your world in an instant?

I’ve lived both. I still don’t know the answer.

My dad’s passing was sudden. Unexpected. That call still echoes in my bones. But my mom’s death? It was slow and painful and intimate and traumatizing in a different way.

There’s no good way to lose the people who gave you life. There’s just the messy reality of grief, and the unique pain of each loss you carry.

Grief Isn’t Just About Loss. It’s About Identity.

This past year, more than ever, I’ve felt the way grief reshapes your identity. Losing a parent—especially one who was your anchor—fractures everything you thought you knew about who you are.

I’ve had to relearn myself. Rebuild from the inside out. Ask hard questions like:

• Who am I now, without her?

• How do I live in a world she’s no longer in?

• How do I hold onto her without holding myself back?

Grief has made me softer in some ways. It’s made me stronger in others. But most of all, it’s made me more real. More honest. More open. More me.

There’s a kind of depth that only comes from loss. It strips you bare, but in the ruins, it plants something honest—something sacred.

Still She Rises. Still I Rise.

There’s a reason I named this space Still She Rises Up. It wasn’t just a tribute. It was a promise. A mantra. A quiet whisper I return to every time the grief feels like too much.

Because she did rise. Over and over again. Through every heartbreak and challenge, she led with strength and grace. And now, it’s my turn to rise—not just in spite of my grief, but with it.

I rise in the way I speak her name. In the way I love deeply and unapologetically. In the boundaries I’ve learned to set. In the tears I don’t hide anymore. In the joy I let myself feel, even when it hurts.

To Those in Year Two—You’re Not Failing

If you’re in your second year of grief and wondering why it still hurts so much—why it sometimes hurts even more—you’re not broken. You’re not going backward. You’re just feeling more deeply now that the fog has lifted.

You’ve carried this pain quietly while the world moved on. That’s not weakness. That’s strength.

Let yourself feel it. Let yourself be seen. Let yourself break and rebuild, over and over again.

Grief isn’t something to fix. It’s something to carry. Something to honor.

Two years without her. somehow, here I still am.

Still aching.Still becoming. Still remembering that last week like it was yesterday.Still holding her hand in my heart, even when I can’t in real life.Still loving her with a kind of depth I didn’t know was possible.

Still rising.

Because she did. Because I can. Because that’s what love does.

And today, on this quiet, painful anniversary… that’s enough.