2020 was the hardest year of my life.

My mother passed away on June 19th, 2020, just one day before my birthday. Ten days later, my grandmother followed her on June 29th. And when I clung to the hope that the saying “it comes in threes” was only a myth, I lost my uncle; my mother’s brother, Larry Paul White on July 29th.

It was as if life turned inward on itself, all at once.

Grief came like a tidal wave, unrelenting. And yet, I’ve come to realize that even in the pain, there’s a strange beauty in having loved someone so deeply that their absence echoes so loudly.

Nothing lasts forever, no matter how much we wish it would. But love endures, in memory, in stories, in the way we carry them forward.