Timestamps

Last Saturday, 2/21/2026, marked ten years since my mom died.

I woke up feeling the same low-grade melancholy I always feel on this day, though the years have dulled and softened the grief.

Time can be tender that way.

But this one felt like a heavier milestone, in the same way any tenth anniversary would.

All day I felt caught between two pulls: the future tugging me forward with life goes on and the past yanking me back toward this is the day things changed.

I tried to ignore the tension.

It had been a decade. Life had surprisingly moved on. The day really shouldn’t have to carry such weight anymore.

In the first few years after she died, we did a balloon release on this anniversary with the kids in the memorial garden where my mom’s ashes are held. We wrote little love notes on the balloons and let them go, watching them make their ways into the sky.

Once, when Cooper was about four or five, he stared as his balloon disappeared behind the clouds.

“I think I saw God reach out and grab i,” he smiled. “I bet he’s handing the balloon over to Mimi right now.”

During the pandemic, we switched to Flying Wish Paper. Small squares of tissue paper you write on, then light the edges with a match, and the paper spins up to the sky, almost disintegrating, as if your words were carried off. Same idea, better for the environment.

But somewhere in the last few years, we stopped the rituals. We were out of town once and broke the pattern and then never went back. Time and distance made it easier for this day to blend into all the others. The grief didn’t disappear, it just settled.

This anniversary though, I couldn’t ignore the stirring. A window of time opened in the afternoon. I hopped in the car and stopped at a local grocery store and bought a tiny potted plant, on sale and left over from Valentine’s Day.

The parking lot near the memorial garden was almost empty, just a few scattered cars. It was such a cold and windy day and my cheeks froze.

I went up to her little niche, near the end of the wall. I reached my hand out to the stone bearing her name. The sun had made it warm. I set the little pot on the bench and said a quick prayer.

I turned my face toward the sky, and smiled. Grateful, above all other things.

I jogged back to my car. I felt lighter than I had all day.

It was such a small gesture. I was alone, dressed in sweats. The little pot was a clearance item. I spent less than five minutes in the space.

But it helped me remember the sacredness of tribute.

It’s not the kind of ritual we do, it’s the act of doing it that matters. I didn’t need to lift balloons or light notes on fire. It didn’t need to be a tradition or have a crowd. It just needed a marker, even if that marker was small.

I simply bore witness to an important person and an important loss.

Grief is unpredictable. Sometimes the days that should be hard aren’t. Other times, a random Tuesday will bring you to your knees. There are external pressures on particular days—anniversaries, holidays, birthdays—that lead you to believe that sorrow should follow a calendar.

It doesn’t work that way.

But timestamps can be meaningful.

They don’t need a lot of fanfare or planning. Just a quiet moment to hold space and remember the love that is worthy of the grief.

The timestamp this year also helped me realize something else—what once felt insurmountable ended up being livable.

I made it ten whole years.

It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t what I’d choose. But I still did it.

I bet I can do it again.

My memoir, Piece by Piece: A Life Remembered through things Lost, is now in the world! I’d love to know what you think of it. 📖💙