I didn’t even realize what today was.
That sounds impossible, I know. But the pain meds, the pain itself, the long stretch of aching days that blur one into the next—they’ve made time slippery. I’ve had terrible back pain for days now, and this morning I woke up feeling off, both physically and emotionally. I was just trying to push through. To get to the end of another Friday.
Then I checked the calendar.
And I broke into a thousand pieces.
Six months.
Six months without Joshua.
Six months without a call or a hug or a reason to exhale.
Six months without his laugh filling the room. Without seeing his shoes by the door. Without the sound of his voice saying, “Hey, Mom.”
I left work. I had to. I couldn’t stay there—sitting at a desk, surrounded by people, pretending that everything was okay when my heart had just remembered what day it was. When my body was already barely holding it together.
So I got in the car and drove.
No plan.
Just a need to move.
To get away.
To find space to feel what I couldn’t feel in a noisy, overstimulating environment. I needed quiet. I needed away.
At the last minute, I decided to get new flowers. I didn’t plan it. I just found myself in the aisle, picking through silk blooms, thinking: This is my life now. This is what it means to be a grieving mother—six months in.
I drove to the cemetery.
His headstone still isn’t there. It’s been six months, and all that marks his resting place is a little temporary plaque. Just his name. Just dates. As if that could ever be enough to capture who he was.
I knelt at that little marker today with new flowers in my hand and disbelief still thick in my throat. How is this my life now? How is this what I do—swap out flowers and trace letters on a plaque for a son who should still be here?
Six months.
How can it be that long already?
And how can it be only six months?
Time is cruel in grief.
It drags and races.
It numbs and pierces.
It forgets to warn you before it crushes you all over again.
It still feels like day one. The disbelief hasn’t lifted. The ache hasn’t softened. The finality hasn’t settled in.
He really won’t walk through the door again.
He really won’t grow old.
He really won’t ever call me again, or flash that sideways grin, or throw his arms around me just because.
This is real.
And it still doesn’t feel real.
Today, all I could do was leave.
Leave the routine. Leave the noise. Leave the pressure to function.
And meet my grief where it was—curled up in the pain of remembering what I hadn’t even meant to forget.
I left work today because I couldn’t pretend. I drove to the cemetery because I had to see the place where he rests—even if part of me still hopes I’ll wake up and find it was all some twisted mistake.
But it’s not.
It’s real.
And I hate that it’s real.
But I also love him too much to turn away from the pain of that truth.
Six months without Joshua.
Still loving him.
Still aching.
Still waiting on a headstone that feels like it might make it even more final.
Still finding him in memories, in silence, in tears, and in every breath I manage to take.
Joshua, you are missed with a depth I can’t put into words.
And today, I remembered all over again what it means to love someone who can’t come home.
Forever my son.
Forever my ache.
Forever my heart.
