How To Celebrate People We Love Even After They're Gone

My mom would have been 73 this week.

She loved her birthday. This week I went back and found the old journal that I had written her eulogy in. I read it aloud to my dear friend and soul sister and cried the whole time. I cried for my 25 year old self who stood on that podium in front of 1,000 people in a state of shock who didn’t shed a tear in an attempt to be strong — which I now understand as pretending to be fine.

I cried for the part of me who has had to step in as my own mother while I simultaneously mother my own children.

If you can imagine, it can be exhausting to mother myself sometimes.

In the same breath, I am so grateful for the amazing example I learned from my mom.

As I read my eulogy for the first time in 15 years, I realized that the way I described my mom:

“She was so cool… not in a trying to be cool kind of way, but in a ‘I am exactly who I am kind of way’… she was just so real”

…is just how I am like her.

I will continue to honor her memory everyday by being in service to myself, my family, my community and the world.

This week I did a bunch of things she loved:
1) swim 🏊‍♀️ lap or laps
2) go for a walk
3) write a thank you note
4) buy yourself or someone you love a thoughtful gift
5) eat some frozen yogurt or gelato

If any of these things resonate with you, please choose one and do it in honor of my beautiful mom!

Or, better yet, do something in honor of someone you love who is no longer with you!

With love and in honor of the original compassionate leader!