Two months on...

Debbie lost her mom two months ago today.

Not a moment in any given day goes by that this stark fact doesn't dominate my existence. Loss changes everything, and forces you to reframe your entire life from this moment forward. Little things that used to define so-called normal for you and your family - from calls just before dinner to green jello waiting for the kids when we arrived for a visit to quick recipe checks from the kitchen - are suddenly, irrevocably no longer there.

You may find other places to get your answers - look online for that recipe, for example, or teach the kids to make their own jello - but it's never the same, and that empty space never quite fills in.

I don't have answers to any of this. I know this is how life is supposed to work, that adapting to loss is part of the price we pay for having been gifted with life in the first place. I get it. Still, that doesn't mean I understand it any better, or that I'm supposed to like any of it. I don't, and my inability to concretely do anything about it is, in a word, frustrating.

Life indeed goes on. Just differently. Which makes me wish it were a little more within my power to make it easier for my still-figuring-it-out family.

And, no, green jello will never quite taste the same again.