Still Carrying Her

I didn't expect to grieve her body.

I have never liked viewing bodies. I avoid the. They make me uncomforable--

too still, too final.

But when it was my mother...everything in me shifted.

I toucher her.

I kissed her.

I lingered.

Because somehow, even in death, that body still felt like home.

I wasn't just leaving her... I was leaving a part of myself.

For months now, I have carried that ache--

this quiet, persistent feeling that something in me is missing.

But recently, I learned something that stopped me in my tracks.

Scientists call it microchimerism--

the reality that a mother and her child exchange cells during pregnancy...

and those cells can remain in each other's bodies for decades.

Even now...

I may still carry her within me.

And she carried me within her until her very last breath.

So maybe the truth isnot only that I lost something...

Maybe it's also that

I am still holding something.

Still carrying her voice in my spirit.

Staill carrying her imprint in my body.

Still carrying her love in ways I cannot fully explain.

This Mother's Day, I honor her not only as someone I remember--

But as someone who is, in ways seen and unseen,

still a part of me.