The Q life Grief Journey

Mother’s Day is coming.

And for the first time in my life,
I will go through it without hearing from one of my children.

I’ve never had a Mother’s Day without Quinten.

Not one.

There was always a call.
A text.
A visit.

And always those words,
the ones I can still hear so clearly in my mind:

“I love you, Momma.”

He was my Momma’s boy.

Not in a small way.
In a way that was steady and sure.
In a way that never made me question how much he loved me.

And now…

I’m trying to understand how this day is supposed to exist without him in it.

People talk about “getting through” holidays after loss.

But no one really tells you how.

How do you move through a day that used to hold so much joy
when now it only highlights what’s missing?

How do you celebrate being a mother
when part of your heart is no longer here to celebrate with you?

I don’t have answers.

Only questions that sit heavy in my chest.

My memories of Quinten are not distant.

They are not faded.

They are sharp.
Present.
Alive in a way that almost feels cruel.

I can hear his voice.
I can see his smile.
I can feel the weight of what’s gone.

And I keep coming back to the last thing I said to him:

“Go with God.”

And he did.

Peacefully.

The way every mother hopes their child would go…
if they ever had to face something so unthinkable.

But that doesn’t make the absence easier.

It doesn’t quiet the part of me that would give anything,
anything,
to have him back.

Cancer took my son.

At 34 years old.

Thirty-four.

A number that feels impossible to say out loud,
because it should never have been the end of his story.

He had more life to live.
More days.
More Mother’s Days.

We both did.

This year, Mother’s Day feels different in a way I can’t fully explain.

It’s not just sadness.

It’s absence.

It’s the quiet where his voice should be.
It’s the space where his presence used to live.
It’s the knowing that no matter what the day holds…
it will never be what it once was.

I don’t know exactly how I will get through it.

Maybe I won’t “get through” it at all.

Maybe I’ll just carry it.

The love.
The loss.
The memories that refuse to fade.

Because even though he is no longer here…
I am still his mother.

And he is still my son.

That doesn’t end.

Not on Mother’s Day.
Not ever.

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Quinten,

I love you.

I miss you more than words can hold.

And if I could hear you say it just one more time….
“I love you, Momma.”
It would be enough to carry me through anything.