“Glorify the Lord and be a message of positivity and encouragement.” Those were my mother’s last words to me before she passed away. It would be two and a half more years before I understood what her last words actually meant.
On December 18, 2023, I lost my mother to stage 4 triple negative breast cancer. Her cancer had returned, aggressive and unforgiving, and in just two weeks, she was gone. I was 23 years old when I lost my mother. It happened so fast that I never had the chance to fully process it; one moment I was by her side, praying to God not to take my mother from me, and the next, I was standing in the wreckage of a life without her in it.
In the immediate aftermath, I felt lost, confused, and still in shock. And then, just six months later, life took even more from me. We lost our dogs, Willow and Gizmo, in a sudden and tragic accident. Willow wasn’t just any dog; she was my mom’s dog, the one we’d gotten her as a gift when she beat cancer the first time. I had promised my mother I would take care of Willow for her. I remember praying, “Please don’t take Willow from me too.” But she was taken anyway. Both of them were.
Within six months, I had lost my mother and our two dogs. I was angry. I was confused. I had prayed and prayed, and it felt like nothing had changed; everything I asked God to protect was still taken from me. So, I did the only thing that felt honest at the time: I walked away from Him.
The years that followed were dark. I became depressed, hopeless, filled with an anger I didn’t know what to do with. I felt like a shell of the woman my mother had raised me to be. It felt like a black hole in my heart, and nothing I did satisfied this darkness. I searched for anything that might fix the darkness, and nothing worked. I felt purposeless, lost, and completely alone.
Then, one day, something shifted. I did something I hadn’t done in a long time.
I prayed.
I asked God to help me find my way back to Him, to know Him again, to help me understand His purpose for my life, and to shape me into the woman He created me to be. I asked Him to help me finally live out my mother’s last words to me.
And from that moment, things began to change. I picked my Bible back up. I started going to church again. I began volunteering, and I started a fundraiser with the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation. Somewhere in the middle of pouring myself into helping others, I realized something: helping people was what made me happy. And I knew I wanted to do more of it.
That black hole inside me, the one nothing could fill, began to disappear. In its place came hope, love, and an excitement for my future that I hadn’t felt in years. I had found my way home to the Lord. I had been voiceless for so long, and through Him, I found my voice again. God placed a yearning on my heart to help others, specifically young women who have lost their mothers too soon, and anyone walking through the kind of grief that makes you question everything you believe. I’ve since had my mother’s final words tattooed on me, so that every single day, I’m reminded: glorify the Lord, and be a message of positivity and encouragement.
Those words became more than a memory; they became a lifeline I didn’t know I’d need. If you’re in your own season of loss right now, let this be your encouragement: healing is possible, faith can be rebuilt, and joy will return. It did for me; it can for you too.