Today, my mother has been gone the length of my entire childhood. 18 years. Those first 18 years seemed like an eternity as I was growing up. An entire lifetime, in fact.

Yet now 18 years seems to have passed in a flash. It could be 8 years or sometimes it feels like 18 months.

Grief time doesn’t follow physics.

It has been 18 years since I could pick up the phone to speak to my mother, something I took for granted those first 18 years, when more often than not it was a phone call to pick me up from school. I miss her sweet, gentle voice with the subtle New York accent, though I have been told I only have to listen to my own distinctive voice to hear hers. But I channel her words in my mind everyday.

For 18 years, she was always there when I stumbled. And for decades after that.

In these 18 years, I have stumbled, often, but the encouragement and love my mother gave me every single day help me up again.

My mother is still very much alive in my memories and in the stories I share. With each passing year, my love deepens, as does my respect, appreciation, and awe of all she did.

Silently, lovingly holding up all those she loved.

I hold her tight in my heart now.