Last year, my partner and I lost two very important women. In July, I lost my mother very suddenly. She was bubbly, fun, outspoken, healthy (even with her diabetes), energetic, sensitive, and she had so much love in her heart that everyone felt it. She held such a light that anyone who was near her would instantly feel it surrounding them. Whenever I seemed to need something, she would call me up and tell me that she found something she thought I would like. Lo and behold, that something turned out to be what I needed. Sometimes, I felt like I disappointed her and my family due to some choices I made that weren’t always wise, but on the outside, she would always tell me that she loved me and was proud of me.

In October of last year, my partner lost his mother quite suddenly as well. She was like a second mother to me and was one of the most stubborn women I’ve ever met, but she held everyone she cared about in her heart. She took a chance on me, not just because I was dating her son, but she also gave me my first job that I loved. She shared with me her love of British humor, Scottish mysteries, and our mutual love of yellow roses; although I didn’t get to see her in person as often as I would have liked, she was always a phone call away. I wish I would have done more to see her, more to show her how much she meant to me. No words could ever express how much she encouraged me to be more independent, but she also taught me that it is okay to ask for help when you need it. I know there are some difficult battles she had to endure, but she never showed them outwardly. It was more that she focused on what needed to be done and, with that determination, she was able to hold up her own business. I have yet to know another woman like her, and I will probably not meet one like her again.

These two women were my mothers, mothers that can never be replaced. There is not a day that goes by when I don’t think about them or wish that I could hear their voices again. There are times that I think about them so strongly that it feels as though they are there with me. I don’t think I could have ever been more blessed to have them in my life; without them, I am left with a big void in my heart. There are times I wonder if they are truly happy now, free from the pain of the world, or even if they miss this life they had on Earth, but then my partner reminds me of something important.

“Just imagine”, he said to me, “that they are looking down on us, my mom with her martini with plenty of olives on the side, and your mom drinking a margarita with a sugar rim, laughing and joking about all their experiences they have had and how now, they can have that vacation they each have wanted for a long time”.

Honestly, I couldn’t have said or thought of a better way to imagine them now, and memories are what keep people truly alive.