Eleven Years. 

Somehow it’s been eleven years. 

Eleven years since my mom took her last breath, and somehow it still doesn’t make sense. 

People say time heals. I don’t know if I believe that. I think time teaches you how to carry what never really gets lighter. It teaches you how to breathe around an ache that never leaves. Some days it’s tucked quietly into the background. Other days it consumes everything. 

Today is one of those days. 

I still miss her with every part of me. 

I can still hear her laugh if I close my eyes long enough. I can still smell the familiar scent of her house and her perfume. I can still remember exactly what it felt like to wrap my arms around her or curl up against her on the couch. I hate to admit this, but when she first died, I was terrified those things would disappear. I thought that as the year passed, her voice would fade, her face would blur, and eventually I’d forget what it felt like to be loved by her. 

But eleven years later, those memories are still startlingly alive. 

Sometimes it honestly feels like she was just here yesterday. 

I don’t think that’s an accident. 

I think it’s one of God’s sweetest gifts – that He has allowed those memories to remain so vivid. They have become little reminders that love doesn’t disappear just because someone does.

I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. 

I never wanted to know what life looked like without my mom in it. There isn’t a single part of me that was prepared for that kind of loss. The absence of her presence still breaks my heart in ways I don’t always have the words for. 

If I’m being completely honest, there have been seasons where I’ve pushed memories of her away because missing her hurt too much. I almost felt guilty for doing it, but sometimes grief is so overwhelming that your heart does whatever it has to do just to survive. 

Lately, though, something has changed. 

Instead of running from those memories, I’ve started welcoming them. 

They don’t just make me cry anymore. 

They comfort me. 

I find myself smiling through tears because for just a moment it feels like she’s close again. 

When I think about my mom, I don’t just remember her kindness or her laugh. I remember her faith. 

Her unwavering, immovable faith. 

Cancer took so much from her physically, but it never stole her trust in Jesus. I watched a woman whose body was failing continue to cling to the One who never does. She suffered with a strength that could only have come from Christ Himself. 

Now, standing in one of the scariest seasons of my own life, fighting my own physical battles, I find myself looking back at her. 

When I feel weak, I remember how strong she was. 

When fear tried to convince me in the hospital that I wouldn’t make it, I remembered the courage she carried. 

When life gets so heavy that I wonder how I’ll get through another day, I remember that she did. 

Not because she was extraordinary on her own. (Which in so many ways she was…) 

Because Jesus was faithful. 

I can still picture one particular day as though it happened this morning. 

I was sitting on the back porch of her house, curled up in one of our patio chairs, crying, listening to the same worship song on repeat. Just on the other side of the window, my mom was taking some of her final breaths. 

There should have only been devastation in that moment. 

There should have only been fear. 

But somehow… 

Jesus met us there. All of us. 

He brought a peace that still doesn’t make sense to me eleven years later. Not the kind of peace that erased the pain, but the kind that somehow carried us through it. The kind Scripture talks about that surpasses all understanding. 

He carried my mom. 

He carried my dad. 

He carried my siblings. 

He carried me. 

He carried our family through a loss so profound I still don’t think language exists to fully describe it. 

Looking back now, I can see His fingerprints everywhere. 

I can see His faithfulness in the smallest details. 

I can see that He never abandoned us- not for one second. 

And I believe something with all of my heart…

I believe the prayers my mom prayed while she was on this earth are still being answered today. 

I think about all the nights she prayed over her children. All the tears she cried. All the prayers she whispered when no one else knew.

I believe a faithful God continues answering the prayers of a faithful woman. 

What an incredible legacy. 

There are still days I wish I could call her. 

Days I wish I could hear her tell me everything is going to be okay. 

Days I wish I could hug her one more time. 

I imagine that ache will stay with me until Heaven. 

But today, as I write this, more than anything, I am grateful. 

Grateful that God gave me the privilege of being her daughter. 

Grateful that although their marriage didn’t work out, that she gave me a father who would stand by me, pray over me and love me through a moment that neither of us knew if I would live through. 

Grateful that I could see firsthand, a faith that still strengthens mine eleven years after she’s gone. 

Grateful that even death could not erase the impact she made on my life.  

And grateful that because of Jesus, goodbye was never forever. 

One day, because of the same Savior she trusted until her final breath, I will see her again. 

Until then, I’ll keep carrying her with me. 

In my memories. 

In my faith. 

In this blog that started as a continuation of what she started, and became an eleven year testimony of how incredibly faithful the Lord has been in my life. 

In the prayers she taught me to pray. 

In the courage she modeled. 

And in the quiet confidence that the same God who carried us through one of the worst days of our lives is still carrying me today. 

The worship song I had been playing on repeat that day, and have continued to play on repeat years after, has stayed me ever since: 

“Faith makes a fool of what makes sense.”

At the time, it didn’t make sense that peace could exist so presently in the middle of that kind of heartbreak. 

It didn’t make sense that God could feel so close while my world was falling apart. 

It didn’t make sense that one day I would survive losing my mom, let alone find joy again. 

It still doesn’t make sense that eleven years later I can miss her this deeply and yet be so certain that death was never the end of her story. 

But faith rarely makes sense. 

It simply believes that Jesus is who He says He is. 

And because of that, I know my mom is more alive today than she has ever been. 

I know I’ll hear her laugh again. 

I’ll hug her again. 

And by some miracle, I have to believe that heaven will in fact have an Olive Garden where we can continue to have our momma/daughter lunches, that the breadsticks are perfect, and all the food is free. 

And until that day comes, I’ll keep holding tightly to the same Jesus she held onto until her very last breath. 

Because eleven years later, I’ve learned, or am finally starting to truly believe, that faith doesn’t always explain the pain. 

Sometimes it simply carries you through it.