The Winding Road of Grief

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It’s been two and a half years since my mother died, and I feel as if I’ve lived multiple lifetimes traveling through the dimensions of grief.  Last year, we sold our house, shoved what we valued into a storage unit, and hit the road.  I figured if the country could collectively lose its goddamn mind, then I could finally stop being scared and do the thing I’ve been talking about doing for decades: see the fucking world.  

The experience has been at times harrowing, but always life-affirming.  I’ve been able to get clear about who I am and what I want out of this one precious life I’ve been blessed to have.  I’ve also had the capacity to rest in ways my life previously didn’t allow.  I’ve forged space for myself to create, to grow, and to change.  

I wrote back in December that I was grateful for my mother’s death.  The experience, and subsequent confrontation with my own mortality and the things I had endured because I thought I must, had freed me from my self-imposed gilded cage.  Gratitude isn’t a stage of grief that is spoken about, but for me, it was a necessary one.  Through gratitude, I was able to reach acceptance. 

As we’ve been traveling, I’ve lugged my mother along with me.  In an RV and on buses, planes, and trains.  She has been an ever-present fixture.  A five-pound physical representation of the weight of grief.  At first, she was god-awful heavy.  My arms and back would ache as I felt encumbered, but determined, not to leave her behind the way I felt she had left me behind.  The adage was the same no matter where we went, “Do we have everyone and grandma?” 

Something has shifted, though, in the past few weeks, and I find myself compelled to leave my mother behind.  Not sprinkle her ashes or anything to that degree.  Merely, leaving her on my altar space while my children and I venture off for a couple of weeks to visit some old haunts.  As I go back to go forward, I feel a sense of release and relief.  This is a new chapter of life, and of grief.  When I lift the bag that I now carry her urn in, a soft lavender color, it feels weightless.  On more than one occasion, I had to open and check that she was actually in there.  

One morning, while perched on the balcony with a mug of tea in my hand, waiting on the arrival of the sun, I was hit with a beautiful realization: I think I'm done carrying her around.  Once I’m settled, she’ll be given a place on my altar from which she can look over my home, no matter if I’m there or afar. 

I shared this reflection with a couple of friends who echoed the clear shift in my grief, and one who pointed out that my mother and I have reached a level of understanding.  I know she’s with me, because she is part of me and I am part of her. After a year of lugging her through multiple climates and crying spells, I feel safe leaving her to watch over that which I build and cherish.  

Through death, we healed what was broken in life, and I’ve reached a level of acceptance for what we were that I never thought I would.  My mother is gone.  We’ll never have the relationship I yearned for while she was living, but through it all, I built a relationship with myself that makes me proud.  

Does this mean that I won’t be impacted by grief, that the random bouts of sadness have passed, and I’m “all better now”?  No.  My mother is dead, and for the rest of my life, I will navigate spaces, places, and relationships with the remnants of her death entering into those situations with me.  It is an inescapable part of who I am now, forever marked and changed by death’s reminder that life is short, fleeting, and must be lived authentically to the fullest.  

I am grateful for the road that her passing put me on, ever winding and changing; I look forward to where it leads next.  

Copyright(c) 2026 Rayven Holmes