In April of 2025, I signed up for 30 days of writing prompts relating to grief. After reading Megan Devine’s book, “It’s Ok to not be OK,” the prompts felt like another way to approach my grief and would offer me a framework. It was through the prompts, when I was asked to “personalize my grief,” that I came to know my grief on a more personal level, and named her Wanda.
I tucked the 30 essays away into a folder and hadn’t looked at them since, until a few days ago. I remembered the physical act of writing the essays, where I was and what my view was, whether the bookshelves in my front room in Boulder, or the ocean view from my couch in the house where I was staying on the Oregon Coast. What I didn’t remember were the words. They took me back to a dark time, when I spent most of my day sleeping or writing. They made me weep for the girl who wrote them, her heart shattered, her life broken. They are a part of my timeline in this journey, part of my story. I’ve decided to share some of the prompts that inspired me.
The prompts, interpreted through my own lens, are in bold type. The words that follow were my spontaneous response, unedited and in the moment.
Day 30
Because I love me…
Because I love me, I want to help the broken mom. The mom standing on the left side of her daughter’s bed, smoothing her hair slowly and gently. Trying, with everything she had on the morning of January 4th, to say goodbye to her beautiful girl, something she’s not supposed to know how to do. Ever.
Because I love me, I see the woman I am today, broken, but trying hard to return to my life, while typing words into my computer, because words are my comfort and my place of healing. I see myself and reach out with love, knowing that nothing will ever be the same again, but I’m trying, and I’m typing.
Because I love me, I take a step back to widen my lens and see the woman I’m becoming, both the strong one and the one who struggles to get out of bed in the morning. I hold that broken woman. I hold her with care and softness because she is wounded. She is trying to put something back together that can’t be fixed or healed. I see her cut a handful of daisies from her garden and put them in a vase on her kitchen counter. They look sad because there are not enough flowers in the vase, but she’s too tired to go cut more. It’s like she’s trying to hold water. She can’t, but she tries.
She is spending as much time as she can with Arlo and Muna. They all need each other so desperately. Her only family in Boulder will be moving to Costa Rica in August. She is scared. She tries not to think about it too much, yet it’s constantly on her mind.
She just wants a break. She’s so tired. So exhausted. There has not been a day in the past 150 days that she hasn’t cried. Every day since January 1st. It’s been a terrible year. She used to love years ending in five because they were lucky, starting with the year she was born. Fives lost their luck this year.
Because I love me, I want to hold her, let her lean into me, put her head on my shoulder while I tell her it is all going to be Ok, but I honestly don’t think it will be. Oh, but I’m trying. I’m trying to help her get through the day, the hour, the minute. Hold on, I keep whispering, and stay in the moment. But “the moment,” she answers, is where the pain lives.
She wants to go back to last Christmas, when her daughter was alive, happy, and mothering her two children. When we were comforting each other because it was our first Christmas without my Dad, her Grandpa. She told me she liked my skirt. I told her I liked hers. She told me it was really a summer dress, but she added the sweater, hoping to make it look more wintery. I told her it was perfect, while marveling at her creativity. She needs those moments again, their levity, their joy.
She returns to the Mom standing at her daughter’s bedside…trying to say goodbye to her, not knowing in that moment that she was also trying to say goodbye to herself…the parts she would never see again. The parts that were left with her daughter.
Because you loved me…
Because you loved me, I’m better at finding the good in people and celebrating it. Your passing has left your brothers and me with an unexpected wisdom we didn’t have before. We are kinder. We are more intentional.
When Grant and I were driving away from the hospital on the morning you died, someone pulled out in front of us. It wasn’t as dangerous as it was irritating, and when I expressed my annoyance to Grant, his reply was, “We don’t know what they’re going through, Mom. Maybe they are rushing to the hospital because their sister was just put on life support.” He was right. We don’t know what other people are carrying, but we are paying attention now because of what we’re carrying.
Because you loved me, I know what calendula looks like in the wild, that lavender helps you sleep, that yarrow has antiseptic properties, and that rosemary is considered the herb of remembrance. I appreciate jars filled with herbs and open them to take in their aroma. I know a little, but not enough.
Because you loved me, I am a better person because you were in my life, and I’m also a better person because of your death. You showed me through your actions, starting as a very young girl, what kindness and showing up for other people looked like, even when it’s the more difficult path. You touched a lot of people in your short years, many who have reached out with their words of sympathy. Many whom I had never met.
Because you loved me, I hear you telling me to drink the tea, eat organic, take a walk, meditate, have an Epsom salt bath, and do all the other lovely, healthy things for your body and soul. And now, more than ever, because my body, my heart, and my spirit are hurting, I’m listening.
Because you loved me, I want to be better, especially now. I want to cultivate your gifts of kindness and generosity, and nurture your deep love of plants in my own life. I want to continue to be the best Laudie I can be for Arlo and Muna because I know that’s what you would want, and it was the promise I gave you when I told you goodbye. And Emery, you were a very good mother.
Because you loved me, and I had the honor of being your Mom, there is more depth to my life. I have more curiosity and have slowed down to take a closer look at something, or to smell a flower or an herb. You lived softly, but fiercely, and it was a beautiful combination.
Because you loved me, you told me you admired my ability to explain my world with words and weave the threads of my life into a story. You told me you loved my generosity with people I had never met. You told me when you were little that you wanted to grow up and be just like me. Well, my darling girl, I only gave you the seeds. You were the one who nurtured those seeds and watched them grow into fields of abundance and healing.
And now, in your absence, the words you told me, scribbled into pages of a journal, I will forever carry in my heart. I loved you every day of your life, and will miss you every day of my life. Because you loved me.