Grief & Loss After Losing Your Mother

Everyone thinks you should be okay by now.
Some days, so do you.

Then the phone is already in hand, her name on the screen, before it hits.

The world gave it a week. Then back to work, Dad's groceries, and "I'm fine" said so many times it started to sound true. Nobody saw the rest. The voicemails still on the phone, not played, not deleted. The flash of jealousy when a woman your age is out to lunch with her mom. The little girl inside who still wants her mama, at thirty, at forty, at fifty-one.

And the questions that wait for the dark:

What if I'd called her back that night?
Did I sign the wrong form at the hospital?
Why do I feel relieved, and what kind of daughter does that make me?
She hurt me for years. Why am I this upset?
If I start feeling better, am I forgetting her?
Does this ever get easier?

Other daughters have asked every one of those, almost word for word. Not one of them was a bad daughter for asking.

This book answers them, with no deadline for being over it and no pretending she was perfect.

Inside:

- The guilt you replay at 2 a.m.: the missed call, not being there at the end, the last fight, and why the mind keeps rewinding.
- The relief nobody admits to, and why feeling it doesn't make you cold.
- Her voice and her voicemails: how to save them before her phone line is shut off.
- Her birthday and every first without her, and planning the hard days ahead of time.
- Dad, falling apart, dating too soon, or already gone, and telling him what you need.
- Siblings, her house, her things, the fight over who decides, and a simple way to divide what she left.
- A mother who was hard to love: what to say when people ask how close you were, and grieving the mom you never got.
- Becoming a mom without your mom: who can stand in for her in the first weeks.
- The people who say "at least," the friends who quietly disappeared, and short answers for the worst lines.
- How to carry it without forgetting her, and why a good day doesn't take her away.

Lots of women still have her number saved under "Mom."
Some can't open her texts. Some read them every night.
Some are fifty-one and still want their mama.
Not one of them is grieving wrong.

You were her daughter. You still are.

Get it today. Keep it by the bed. Open it the next time the voice in your head says you should be over this.