I want to talk about my mom.

Tomorrow will be two months since my beautiful mother left this Earth. It’s hard to believe. Some days I think about it a little. Other days I am consumed by it, and my lack of understanding of “why” and not knowing how I will ever get on without her.

It’s like I’ve lived through the end of the book “I’ll Love You Forever.” She nurtured me, I got busy, then she sat on my lap in the rocking chair. But she was only 53.

Part of the struggle is trying to identify the awful feeling in my gut. There’s an emptiness but it needs explanation. At least it does to me. I’m the kind of person that needs to feel all the feels. I identified at least part of it as a longing for that unconditional mama love.

A mother’s love is irreplaceable, and I feel its absence deeply. There is no one who knew me as long as as thoroughly. No one who accepted that most authentic version of me, 100%, for who I am. I understand now in the same way that I know what my kids’ different cries and smirks mean, this is how deeply she knew me. For 31 years. This is how intensely she could read me and sense me. This is how she could always fix me.

I have people who love me unconditionally – plenty of them. Friends, aunts, Godmothers. But a mother’s love is different. It was the most accepting embrace I have ever known. Only with her could I be completely unapologetic, even in times I probably shouldn’t have burdened her. I often feel like a burden to others – with my intense indecision and overthinking – but I knew I wasn’t to her. My heart sinks knowing that I will never know such a restful love again. That kind of acceptance and peace with being who I am. Unapologetically. It was freeing and it was comforting and it gave me life.

I am 31 years old, but I ask so many questions. I asked her all the questions about life. The dumb ones. The obvious ones. The deepest ones. I wonder if I will ever feel that absolute non-judgement and acceptance again. My support system is amazing. I love them. But they aren’t blessed with the pre-cognizant understanding of me that my mom had, and no one ever will again. It’s an isolating feeling and it’s hard.

In the way that her love made me free to be myself, the absence of it makes me feel like now the real show begins. It makes me think, Who am I? Who should I be? What is right and wrong? Who is good and bad? What should I think or feel or do? She guided me through every moment of those thoughts (and I have so many!). I pray (and I know) she will continue to guide me from Heaven, but Heaven is much harder to read than a text message.

If there ever was an end of an era, my last night in my childhood home in New Jersey was it. I know my friends and wonderful people will make it easier, but it sucks. I grew up in this house. Terrible things happened there, hard things happened, but most of all magic happened. Fun happened. My childhood happened. Growing up happened. And my mom was everything that was good about it.