I'm still your mother

I still say your name in my head.

Not because I forget you’re gone,

but because I forget I’m supposed to stop.

I want you to know something first.

Before anything else.

Before the questions people ask.

Before the way they lower their voices.

I know you were trying.

I know how tired you were.

I know the weight wasn’t weakness.

It was too much pain carried for too long

without enough relief.

I don’t replay every moment.

I don’t punish myself with what ifs.

I know how deeply you felt things.

I know how hard you fought to stay.

They talk about overdose like it explains you.

It doesn’t.

It explains a moment.

It doesn’t explain a life.

You were my son before the struggle.

You were my son during it.

You are my son now.

That didn’t change when your breathing stopped.

Some days I can move through the world.

Some days I sit still and let the grief come.

Grief isn’t a failure to heal.

It’s love with nowhere to land.

I don’t need answers anymore.

I don’t need reasons.

I need you remembered correctly.

You were not careless.

You were not weak.

You were human in a world that didn’t know

how to hold you gently enough.

If I could have carried the pain for you,

I would have.

I would have done it quietly

and never asked to be thanked.

I don’t know what comes after this life.

I don’t need it explained.

I just need you to know

that you were never a burden.

Not once.

I am still your mother.

I say it out loud.

I say it when the room goes silent.

I say it when people don’t know what to do with my grief.

I will keep saying it.

You were loved while you were here.

You are loved now.

And nothing —

not death,

not addiction,

not silence —

took that from us.

I’m still here.

I’m still loving you.

And I always will.