It has been six months since I last saw my mother. I am not making a practice of counting the days, or plan on holding a candle-light vigil at 10:25am on the 4th of every month; Mom would say that was sweet, but also obsessive, crazy, a waste of time, and then tell me I need to go pluck my eyebrows.

I've heard people say that things get worse as time goes on, and a small part of me expected to start my morning with a huge emotional melt-down that only Chernobyl could rival. That has yet to happen, and I refuse to sit around and wait for it. My sister might label this as being cold and too logical, but I know how to tell when I’m lying to myself-today feels much more like a milestone than anything else. I suppose I might feel differently on December 4th, but I really don’t want to recognize the 4th-whether it be 6, 12, or 24 months since she passed-as one would recognize a holiday or a day of remembrance.

I remember the crap out of my mom with every single passing day and I think with anyone who has lost someone they loved, they shouldn’t dwell on the negative. That sounds incredibly cliché, I know, but it is what I believe. Today, I took an honest evaluation at myself and realized how well I have carried on. Sure, there are moments when I re-realize that I’ll never, ever see her again in my lifetime, and there are the more frequent moments when I re-realize that the majority of my family is far away, and that outside of family, I only have a couple of people that honestly and truly care about my welfare.

That feeling of loss is the worst part. It took me a while to figure it out, but it’s losing someone who has been there your whole life that hurts the most, second only to knowing that she won’t be there for any major or minor events in my life. I have no one to call mom. I have no one asking me how things are going at work. I have no one asking me for my opinion on the newest coat of paint on the kitchen walls.

I miss the role that she played in my life. The only way to carry on is to learn how to live each day without her presence and to recognize that all of the good qualities I found in her-strength, love, comfort and care-can still be found in the people around me.