I was born in New Mexico. A place of sun-bleached skies and desert winds. I hated the wind. My childhood was good, even when life around me wasn’t always simple. I had a mom who loved me with everything she had. She made sure I was safe, even when the world tried to say otherwise. I think now, as a mother, I see how hard she worked to keep things hidden from me. The hard truths, the painful moments. She protected me not just with her actions, but with her silence. There were things happening around me, choices being made, pain that lingered in the walls of our home. But she did everything she could to let me live as a child should. feeling loved, feeling safe, much of the pain that circled our family revolved around my sister. She had her own story. one filled with trauma I will never fully understand. There were decisions she made, paths she took, that brought tension and heartbreak into our lives. I knew it wasn’t about her being “bad.” It was deeper. She was carrying things that were too heavy for someone so young. Things that left scars you can’t always see. She was an amazing soul with a lot of pain that completely overtook her. I didn't know all the details at the time. I was kept mostly in the dark. Naive, but not blind. I could feel when something was wrong. Kids have a way of sensing what they can't explain. I think that’s when I learned that life isn’t always great, and family isn’t always easy. But through it all, my mom stood steady. For the version of our family that she fought so hard to protect.

When Kirsten passed away, that’s when everything in my life started to shift. It didn’t happen all at once. It was subtle at first. A heaviness in my chest that I couldn’t name, a silence in the spaces she used to fill. I’d hear a song, or drive by somewhere we’d been, and the reality would hit me. she was gone. Just gone. And nothing could undo that. the truth is that her death didn’t wake me up right away. Growing up as we got older, my sister and I found a rhythm. It wasn’t always perfect, and she wasn’t always easy to be around but most of the time, our bond held strong. We laughed, we argued, we had our moments. But deep down, I always knew she adored me. I never questioned that. If I had needed her, really needed her, she would have moved the world for me. She would have hung the moon and the stars if it meant I'd be happy and healthy. She carried a lot. Things that shaped her, hardened her, sometimes made her rough around the edges. But I also saw the softness in her, the way she looked at me, how fiercely she loved in her own way. She had a fire in her that could burn you if you got too close, but I never doubted that she would protect me with that same flam. I was mad at her before she passed. Irritated. Maybe even a little cold. I was 19 and caught up in my own world, full of pride and assumptions and the belief that there would always be time. I thought we’d argue, make up, repeat the cycle, and have decades ahead of us to figure it all out. I thought I’d have the time to say what I really felt, to understand her better, to love her more openly. But I didn’t. And I still carry that When Kirsten died, something in me shut down. I just... kept going. I was young, and the world didn’t stop for my grief. I pushed it down. Numbed it. Moved on in the only way I knew how and that was by not looking back too much. I told myself I was okay. That she’d want me to be okay. And maybe she would have. But deep down, I wasn’t. I wasn't okay at all. Then I hit my 30s. And suddenly, I just got still enough to hear everything I’d been avoiding. That’s when the grief came back. raw, aching, but this time, ready to be dealt with. I started to really think about her. Who she was. What she meant to me. What losing her had done to me. I began to realize that I had been carrying her this whole time. Her pain, her love, her memory. I started to see that maybe my path forward wasn’t about getting over her. It was about carrying her differently. More gently. More honestly. Without shame. In my 30s, I began to forgive myself. I began to grieve her for real. I began to grow into the woman I think she always believed I could be. She was always my biggest supporter. I like to think that she's in Heaven rooting for me just like she would if she were here on earth.