I was one month shy of turning 33 when my mom died. Not too young to lose her, but she was the most significant loss I had experienced. As a child of elementary school age, I lost an uncle in the Vietnam War, but because he was in the military, I didn’t see him often. My biological grandparents all passed before my birth. So losing my mom was a life defining moment in more ways than one.

As I said, I hadn’t lost anyone close to me at that point. And my mom and I were particularly close at the time of her death. I had been her caregiver for the 2 years and 10 months of her illness. Going into that situation wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t supposed to end in her death. As a matter of fact, the fix for her condition was part of what lead to her early demise. She was 60 years old.

How to properly grieve for someone was among the many things I learned through our relationship. I went from having a purpose in life to standing in a black hole of despair in a heartbeat. It took me sometime to wrap my heart and mind around it. And even longer to redirect my life.

We all have our own processes to get through our day to day lives. How we start our days. What moves us through the mornings, afternoons and evenings. How we measure how the day, week, and year has gone. Grief is fortunately not a common everyday occurrence, but it is, unfortunately, something we will all experience at one time or another.

I learned that my process to deal with loss looks a lot similar to others. But I also learned it very unique to myself in other ways. While trying to reconcile myself to the loss of my mother was a bit more complicated because of the nature of our relationship, I took greater pains to honor her life more than as what came before the end.

And ultimately that was most important part of my grieving process. That everything that has a beginning will have an end. That what is most important is what comes between those two points. That grieving isn’t so much about letting go, but more about what you hold on to.

Later this month, it will be 34 years since my mother died. In a way I will have lived longer without her than with her. But the mere fact that I am aware this month, nearly 34 years later, and have been every March since 1993 clearly says I am not without her now.