This is the story of how no one saw I was dying. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally—dying, in this chair, in this room, for years.
Of how I cried every single day. All day. All night. And still showed up. Still paid the bills. Still made dinner(well, i slacked a lot in this area, lol). Still masked it so damn well that even the one person who was with me every day—my daughter, Mia—didn’t see it.
We were eating at El Nop. She kept talking about how heartbreaking it must be for Bryce’s mom… how hard it would be to lose a child.
And I just…
I dropped my fork.
I looked her dead in the face and asked, ‘Don’t you see me as a mother who lost her child?’
She froze.
And said… no.
She hadn’t thought of me like that.
I was dying in the room right next to hers.
Still being mom. Still carrying her world on my back while mine had shattered.
Was I invisible?
Or was I just that fucking good at hiding it?
Because if grief was a performance, I deserve an OSCR. Hell, give me a whole damn lifetime achievement award.
This is what it looks like to grieve in silence.
To rot while smiling.
To survive because you have no other choice.