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.

Spoken-word grief piece — minimal piano or ambient pads, slow tempo, intimate female voice, raw stillness, reverent