Love Does Not End When Life Does

Love does not end when life does.
I have come to understand that in the quiet moments, in the ache of missing her, and in the invisible ways she still walks beside me.

My mother was the person who loved me most in the world. She is the one who saw me completely. Or, at least tried to. In all my imperfections and aspirations. And she loved me without condition. She was the person who cared for me, who believed in me, and who was always there for me.

She loved me. She needed me to love her back. And, most importantly, to protect her and give her the love and care she did not receive elsewhere. It was a complex yet beautiful relationship. Unique. Authentic. At the core of it all was a deep, true love. There was no performance with her, no need to prove. Just love. Steady. Fierce. Pure.

When she passed, it felt as though the center of my world had quietly fallen away. The grief was, and still is, immense. It is not something that fades or resolves neatly. Grief lives with me. Every. Single. Day. Every day it is different. It reshapes itself as I move through time. But it is there.

Some days it is a sharp pain. Other days, it is a soft hum of longing. It is a wish to hug her and hold her. Or write a message. Or pick up the phone and tell her something small. Tell her something she would care about, no matter how small,  simply because it mattered to me.

She was so proud of our work at Indelible Learning. At first, she didn’t quite understand why I devoted so much time outside the profession I love so fiercely, medicine, to do something innovative. To teach kids!

I would go from teaching in medical school to caring for patients in the hospital, to working with fourth- and fifth-graders or middle schoolers. It was unique. It was different. And it didn’t make immediate sense.

But she knew that what we were doing came from a deep place of caring. And about making the world a better place, about starting earlier than adulthood, earlier than illness, earlier than the hospital. So she supported me. She supported us.

She offered to pack boxes of Election Lab board games, where we had many to prepare. She helped sort election maps. She came with us to Science Field Days. A magnet for people, she connected instantly with kids and parents alike. She loved children: their curiosity, their joy, their honesty.

By being with us, she came to see that it wasn’t just about education, technology, or public health. And even though it sometimes just did not make sense (from many perspectives), she saw it was heart work. It is work about connection. And empathy. And helping others. And that is what she was all about. 

She cheered for every milestone, every presentation, every step forward. And even now, I can still hear her voice, full of pride and love, telling me to keep going.

In truth, everything I do with Indelible is now also for her and, in a way, because of her too. She shaped my compassion. She taught me what it means to care deeply. Not as a superficial act, but deeply caring, as a way of being. 

The spirit of our work is helping others learn, heal, and grow. And that is her legacy now, too, living on through me. Every project, every talk, every student or community we reach out to carries a piece of her love in me.

I miss her every single day.
I love her every single day.
And I carry her with me every single day. 

This is not in the past tense, but in the present. It is woven into everything I am and everything I do.

Because love does not end when life does.
It transforms. It deepens.
It becomes the light we continue to walk by.

And now sadly, all we have are memories.