Time has not healed my heart from the loss of Mackenzie. Acceptance did not soothe my spirit from the pain of her absence. Family and friends and dogs are some days no remedy whatsoever for my yearning for her freckled face, her silly jokes, and her unflappable ease. Work, writing, and art have not filled the void she left. Six years of therapy has not ended my grief. My daily practice of yoga and meditation has not altered my status as a bereaved mother.

But

Yet

Despite the limitations of all these remedies, and because of them, I can sit still in the presence of Mack’s absence and my grief. Even on her birthday. I can hold all the pain and all the longing and still be present in my life and live on for Mack, for Savannah, and for me.

Because

Time keeps teaching me how to tend to a fragile heart. Acceptance is the license for my spirit to keep on marching forward. Family and friends and dogs remind me every day that a broken heart and a shattered spirit can still know love and joy and connection to things beyond the self. Work, writing, and art give me purpose. Therapy offers me perspective and dispassionately guides my emotional and mental well-being. My daily practice of yoga and meditation has shown me that bereaved mother is not the entirety of my being and that I can choose to suffer or not suffer and that Mack would be so sad to know that I have suffered.

Time, acceptance, family, friends, dogs, work, writing, art, therapy, yoga, and meditation have nourished my body, mind, and spirit in beautiful and different ways. They have each tended to my tender heart. They have made me resilient and courageous, qualities that have healed my suffering. I know now that I need to be soft as well as strong. That bending is not weakness. To feel my pain is to be able to witness the pain of others. That life is hard. That to be open-hearted might break you but that being open-hearted is the only way to travel this terrifying, beautiful human journey.

Mack knew all of this. She was only twenty, but she knew.

And now I know what she knew, and I am free. Not free of missing her. Not free of the pain of my grief. Rather I am free to miss her, free to feel the pain of my grief however I need to, and also free to live a joyful life that would make her proud. She would be so happy to know that her once stressed-out, hard-nosed, unhappy momma bear is finally content.

On this Mack Day, what would have been my remarkable daughter’s 32^nd birthday, I am grateful for her. I am grateful for time and acceptance as well as my yoga and meditation practice. I am grateful for a cozy house and a comfortable life with access to therapy and yoga classes. I am so damned lucky in family and friends and dogs. I am grateful for the peaceful life I have painstakingly curated and for intellectually stimulating work and a creative life that keeps me challenged. I am grateful to have made it to 59, through more than eleven years now without Mack. I am grateful to still be learning and growing while at the same time content with where I am and who I am right now.

I am a different woman than I was before my life was shattered in October 2014. Better in many ways. Softer and more tolerant. Less hard on myself and less bitter about the world. I like myself so much more than I ever did before Mack died. It is hard to know that surviving trauma with grace results in an improved human being on the other side. I would do anything to have avoided that trauma, and if it was within my power I would take Mack back in a second and give up my evolution. I would always choose her over me. Alas, I must simply be grateful that Mack’s spirit inspired me to survive my terrible loss by choosing the light in me instead of the darkness.

Mack was ever the light. So as long as there are Mack Days as well as ordinary Tuesdays, and as long as there is breath in my body, I will endeavor to keep choosing the light.