A year holds so much weight. Every holiday, anniversary, birthday, and celebration is a quiet reminder of those we love and those we have lost. Threads of joy and solace woven through a fabric of sadness.

In less than an hour, the final day of 2025 arrives. A full calendar year that I’ve experienced the ache of loss of my parents. While it has technically been just over a year since Mom joined Dad, I’ll remember 2025 as the time when their absence truly became a permanent fixture.

Tomorrow is my birthday. One of the hardest grief days for me. I ache for the past rituals: Mom calling me and singing Happy Birthday at the exact time I was born, special dinners being planned, the familiar stories of long ago. The silence makes those moments feel more like treasures than memories.

This year also wraps up a year of finishing the process of her estate. Being the administrator, I became the lighting rod for the family friction. While lawyers handled the paperwork, I tried to handle the hearts- sibling disagreements, difficult conversations, weekends pouring over paperwork, and the impossible task of balancing the law with Mom’s final wishes. I tried so hard to keep the family balance intact, only to realize that I couldn’t control the outcome. My body absorbed the toll of that stress and I was quickly launched into a new phase of life faster than I was ready for.

What I’ve learned as the minutes tick close to midnight is that I can only control myself and how I respond. A lesson that is taught to many of us early, but is hard to practice. People see the mask I wear and assume I’m being “tough” or don’t care. They don’t see how many times my heart has been broken recently that I have had to become my own sanctuary.

The two strongest pillars of my life are gone and it’s exhausting to hold yourself up when your foundation has shifted. It’s even harder when others ask of you things you don’t have the capacity to provide, because they don’t see the fractures you’re carrying.

So yes- 2025 will be the year of loss in many ways. However, it has caused me to start healing my fractures and find my new place in this world. Nothing I do is without the thought of my parents and what they have taught me; in that way, they are still the blueprint I build my life upon.