On June 5, 2014 I lost the woman who became a mother to me, a choice I made by heart alone. She was amazing. I dated her youngest for four years, and remained close with him until she died. When we had split, she told him she was keeping me and he would have to be okay with that. And then she hired me on part time at the business she had started with her mother the year before. I had even helped her edit her business plan when she was getting the process started.

She knew about my home life with my parents, and about the dysfunctional relationship I have with my own mother. I bought her mother’s day cards and she knew just what to say when I needed a mom. And she somehow managed to do that while still being the confidant of my ex. She advised us both without ever making me feel like I wasn’t still important to her. And that was huge for me. My own mother is an addict who battles mental illness, and you learn growing up like that, sometimes love isn’t enough. Their own needs will always matter more.

So she wasn’t my birth mother, and she wasn’t always in my life from day one. But I called her Mom. And I always knew I wanted her there when I got married and had babies of my own. And I thought of her all the time and had to stop myself from running over to her house this past Christmas. I knew I needed a life without my ex but it felt like that meant missing her more, too.

And now I wish I had. Cause now I have to miss her every single day. The family was amazing to me. They let me come with them to the funeral home. And they asked me to help write her eulogy. And though we had been separated a long time, they put my name next to my ex’s on the cards at the service on the list of her children,

Her mom hugged me and said, “You know, you were the daughter she never had.” All the parts leading up to the service were hard. But everyone else is there, feeling it, too. There wasn’t the same sense of loneliness, and people were okay that you were sad and crying and couldn’t make it through the day.

It’s trying to make it through real life I find impossible. People are so impatient, and they expect you to wake up and feel fine the day after the service, like someone dying is as simple as putting everything about them into a neat, tidy box and closing the lid. And a lot of people think I don’t have a right to miss her. Because she wasn’t really my mom. Like somehow, you don’t get to decide how much you loved someone and how much they mattered to you.

And after her service, my ex, who had been the only best friend I had ever had, shut me out. I remind him of her. All the logic is there in my head. It makes sense in my head, that he can have his grief his way, and I, mine. But doing this without my best friend, and the person who shares many of my memories of her is the hardest thing I’ve ever done aside from losing her in the first place. They were my family and my friends when I had nothing. And I lost them both in a single day. And even though it’s more than eight weeks, I still expect to wake up one day and it just all be some awful dream. I miss you every day, Mom. I know they say you learn to live around the loss, but right now it’s everything. Missing you is all there is.