A Part of Me Died

It didn’t kill me, but something changed.

People often talk about surviving the unimaginable; the kind of pain that should rip you apart, yet somehow leaves you standing. That’s what losing my daughter did to me. I survived. But surviving doesn’t always mean living. And it certainly doesn’t mean you walk away untouched.

When I say, “a part of me died,” I mean it in the most literal sense my soul can describe. It didn’t kill me, but I haven’t been the same since the day I lost Mya…. a date etched into my bones, playing on repeat in my mind, sometimes louder than the sound of my own voice. That day didn’t take my life, but it took something else.

Something sacred. Something irreplaceable.

That day, something in me shifted;  a piece of my identity, a piece of my heart…was severed. What was left behind was a version of myself I didn’t recognize, someone I had to reintroduce myself to over time. A quieter woman. A more haunted one. A mother whose arms forever feel too empty. I walked away, but not as the same person.

Before Mya died, my life was loud with her laughter, full of her sass, her heart, her energy. She was the storm and the sunshine. Every room she entered, she filled. Now, I find myself walking into rooms that feel colder, quieter, incomplete. I feel the weight of her absence in moments people don’t see. When I open the fridge and see the drinks she used to love. When I hear a song on the radio and remember her singing it with the windows down. When I pass someone who wears her perfume or has her laugh…those moments slice through me like broken glass.

I didn’t lose my entire self. I still get up each morning. I still fight. I still breathe. But there’s stillness in my fire now, a quiet flicker where there used to be a roaring blaze. I smile, but it doesn’t always reach my eyes. I laugh, but it sometimes feels foreign. I carry this silent grief like a second skin, invisible to the world, but felt with every step I take.

Some days, it feels like I’m wearing Mya’s hoodie around my soul… something that still smells like her, still wraps me in her warmth, but can’t quite protect me from the chill of reality.

That day took part of who I was.

And it left me searching for a new way to live. I was a mother of four…now I parent with one hand in this world and one reaching toward the next. I look at Mya’s photos and wonder what her future would’ve held… who she would’ve loved, what she would’ve become, how many more people she would have made laugh with her unapologetic spirit. The dreams I had for her didn’t just disappear; they transformed into this unbearable ache that follows me everywhere. I carry on, but feel the void.

Even surrounded by people, I sometimes feel alone. It’s not because others haven’t shown up…I’ve been blessed with support. It’s just that no one else knows the shape of Mya’s absence like I do. No one else remembers the tiny details: the way she twirled her hair when she was thinking, the crazy patch of  freckles on her right shoulder, the sound of her belly laughs when something really got her going. These memories are now sacred whispers….things I hold close so I don’t forget… and so the world doesn’t either. A heart once whole, now destroyed.

The grief of child loss isn’t just sadness. It’s devastation. It’s a constant pull between wanting to scream and needing to keep going. It’s finding the strength to live for your other children, your family, your purpose…while mourning the child whose absence shakes the foundation of your soul. My heart still beats, but it does so with a rhythm that’s forever off… like a song missing a verse, or a lullaby without its final note. It didn’t end me, but I’m not whole.

People often tell me I’m strong. And while I appreciate their words, I don’t always feel that way. Sometimes, I’m just surviving the next breath. But maybe that’s its own kind of strength…to exist in a world that took your child and keep trying anyway. To speak her name. To tell her story.  Mya’s Mission was born from this fractured place… a place where love and grief collide. A place where a mother, unwilling to let her daughter’s death be in vain, found the courage to stand up and say, “No more.” An echo remains, deep in my soul.

I hear her still. In songs. In memories. In dreams. I see her in sunsets. In her nieces eyes. In the people we help through our foundation. Every life we touch in Mya’s name feels like a ripple from the part of her that still lives on. The echo of her life continues through every Narcan box placed, every recovery journey supported, every story shared to prevent another family from experiencing this pain.

I’m here. I breathe. But truth denied… The world keeps spinning. People go on. And sometimes I do, too. But the truth is, I’m forever changed. That version of me who existed before July 24, 2022, is gone. Not erased… but altered. Softer in some ways, more fierce in others. More aware of time. More determined to leave a mark of compassion, of awareness, of hope.

A part of me, that day, quietly died. But in that death, something else was born… a mission. A fire that, while quieter, is more focused. Mya’s life was not in vain. Her death will not be either. Because through the ashes of that day, Mya’s Mission rises. Not just as a tribute to a life lost…. but as a lifeline for those still here.

To the grieving parent reading this: I see you. I am you. To the person struggling with addiction or loving someone who is: I fight for you. I believe in you.

To the world: Don’t wait until it’s your child. Listen now. Care now. Love now.

Because for me…A part of me died.But the part that remains…It lives with purpose. It fights with love. And it carries her name…always!