Death does not need a new title, a gentler label, or a prettier box tied neatly with silence. Death is not the problem. The problem is the story we've been told and the story we tell ourselves and others. A story that says: Don't talk about it. Don't plan for it. Don't look at it. Don't speak its name until it is standing at your doorstep. So we bury the conversation long before we bury our dead. And fear grows there. In the darkness of avoided words. In the spaces between "s

Of all the days on the calendar, your birthday still arrives like a tsunami wave I cannot stop. So, I duck dive. I surrender. And somehow, I survive. Tomorrow, the world will call it another day, but my heart will whisper..."it's Mom's birthday". You would be 72 years young. And suddenly remembering this makes me feel homesick again. Not for a place, not for a house with familiar walls, but for you. Homesick for your voice calling my name from another room. "Lucy" or "Lucy de

*Bold phrases are in Spanish. Translations can be found below. I sit and write because I’m ambushed by grief, yet deeply filled with love. Holiday traditions remind me of the structure you built for us. We try so hard to keep it going, but it’s just not the same, Mom. The doors rip off the hinges to grief, and they never seem to close. One gust of wind—one memory— and I'm back where it all began and ended: At Kaiser, watching you take your last breaths. I brought you in on a