The Pain of Having a Mother in Heaven

I’m the woman who lives with the endless pain of having a mother in heaven. 

I’m the friend with a pain that my friends understand. Though it’s a pain I wouldn’t want them to understand, it’s the pain of having a mother in heaven. 

I’m the mother with an ache for all that my children are missing and all that my mother would have been to them. I’m the mother who lives with the absence of my own mother. A mother with the pain of having a mother in heaven. 

I’m the wife whose heart is complicated and messy. A wife who holds longing every day for the woman who created me. A wife that aches with the pain of having a mother in heaven. 

I’m the sister who tries desperately to fill the missing pieces created by my mother’s absence. I’m the sister who hides tears of sorrow as I hold my nephew and acknowledge he’ll never know the greatest woman I’ve ever met, his grandmother. We’re sisters who share a pain I wish we didn’t, the pain of having a mother in heaven. 

I’m the daughter who fiercely misses my mother while desperately trying to appreciate the father that’s still here. The daughter who is constantly confused about the composition of my existing role. The title and responsibilities of ‘daughter’ feel different when you hold the pain of having a mother in heaven. 

I’m the deconstructed, repurposed and incomplete soul that remains now that my mother is gone to her eternity. I’m different and will forever be different. I still hold purpose and beauty but they are structured much differently than ever before. The pain of having a mother in heaven changes every single piece of the person that remains. 

Grief changes the friend we are. It changes the caregiver we are. It changes the daughter, and spouse, and student, and professional, and every title that we hold. It changes everything. It’s simultaneously holding a crippling longing, an unwavering love and an endless pursuit of hope, always. 

I’m a mind who understands significant loss. A heart who holds delicate empathy, and overwhelming compassion. A soul that is older and wiser, not by age, but by experience. I’m the woman who lives with the endless pain of having a mother in heaven. 

xox, Chels