She once believed death belonged to other people.
It lived in distant stories, in dramatic hospital scenes on television, in conversations that lowered their voices before quickly moving on. Death was something that happened elsewhere, to someone else, at another time. She believed it arrived gently. Quietly. That it came wrapped in meaning, already explained, already softened by peace before it ever reached you. She did not know then that death can arrive like an open wound—raw, sudden, and devastating in its truth.
For years, she wished people spoke more honestly about death. She believed it was hidden too carefully behind polite language and comforting phrases. She never imagined that understanding would come through her own child.
When Brielle died, people searched for words that might ease the pain. They spoke of passing. Of rest. Of going home.
None of those words prepared her for the moment she had to say goodbye.
Saying goodbye to a child is not beautiful.
It is not poetic.
It is not peaceful.
It is violent in its silence and merciless in its finality. There is no language wide enough to hold the sound a mother’s heart makes when it shatters.
She had known fear long before that day. Like most people, she feared death deeply. The unknown terrified her. She worried she would not be ready when it came—that she would not have prayed enough, believed enough, or done enough to face it.
Death felt like a test she would fail. A door she never wanted to open.
Everything changed on December 11.
On that day, something inside her died with Brielle. Not symbolically. Not figuratively. But in a way so profound her body felt it before her mind could understand it.
And the world kept going.
The sun rose. People laughed. Cars passed by. Life continued as if nothing had changed—and that felt like the deepest betrayal of all.