I Stand Here 7

I stand here with a heart that has been broken and remade more times than I can count. I stand here as a mother who lost her beautiful son to a world that became too heavy for his gentle soul. And though his body slipped away, his love did not. His presence did not. His purpose did not. Because grief— grief is not an ending. It is a gateway. A deep, trembling doorway into the truth of who we are and why we’re here. Life… Life is love, and loss, and learning. It is lessons so fierce you question your own belonging. Lessons so sharp they cut you open and show you every place you forgot your own strength. I didn’t understand it at first. I didn’t understand why a soul— his soul— would choose a path like this. Why I would choose a lesson like this. But then the signs began. Quiet at first. Soft. Almost shy. Hearts. Heart-shaped stones on the ground. Hearts in the dust, in the shadows, in the corners of my vision. Little messages from the boy who now walks beside me in ways he never could before. And the whisper came… Mum, you’re stronger than you know. Stronger than the breaking. Stronger than the questions. Stronger than the nights that felt like they would swallow you whole. So I rise. Not because the pain vanished, not because I understand everything now, but because his love lifts me. Because his spirit pushes me forward. Because he didn’t leave— he expanded. And I rise for his siblings, even if they cannot yet see the quiet miracle of who he was and who he still is. I rise for every life he touched with that rare, honest light. And I rise for myself— for the soul that chose this wild, sacred curriculum. A path not for the faint of heart. A path for a mother who came here to remember her own power. And now… now I guide others through their own valleys, their own darkness, their own unraveling. I guide them toward the stillness inside the present moment— the place where peace returns, where breath softens, where grace becomes a quiet river running through the body. I guide them to open their hearts again. To receive again. To trust again. To remember that even in the deepest loss, they are held— always held— within the arms of love itself. So I rise. And I rise. And I rise. For my beautiful boy. For this beautiful, terrible, exquisite life. For every soul who needs to hear this. For every heart still learning to beat after the breaking. And I rise because love asked me to. Because grief shaped me to. Because he showed me that even in the darkest night— especially in the darkest night— the light was never gone. It was only changing form.