In 2019, she came to stay with me to help me take care of my busy lifestyle and career, so that my kids never felt without. She not only raised her kids, she helped raise all of her grandchildren. Losing one of their primary caregivers has been so difficult. She was their best friend and made everything in life so much easier for everyone else. Her impact came in so many ways.

The senselessness of her loss drives the pain but the hurt eases every day.

Mom always taught us to have a godly appreciation for time and Mother Nature. She loved to teach about the stars and the planets in our sky and their connection with life on earth in harmony with numerology, which she said was studying the ways that numbers vibrate and how they are interconnected to life.

Mom had a passion for this because she believed in finding the meaning in life and the adventure of your life. She would help predict paths for people to take if they were struggling and provided answers for spiritual guidance. But nothing could have predicted, or prepared us, for the COVID tragedy that would take her from us forever.

Looking back, reflecting upon and trying to honor my mom’s life, it seems fitting that what she provided to others in her charting was like assistive guidance in growth and development. Maybe she knew that watching her teach how to move on, and enduring her own traumas, would help us one day get through the hardest grief of all, losing her. Her loss is so painful to bear but each day we heal just a little more.

To us, Mom was Gaya: Grandmom to all, one of the sisterhood, and comparable to no other.