Please Don't Forget About Me — The Woman Who Didn't Come Back

Please Don't Forget About Me

I go back to work TODAY

I've stared at that sentence for weeks, hoping it would eventually feel normal.

It doesn't.

People keep saying, "You're going back to work."

But I'm not going back.

The woman who walked out of that office four months ago isn't the woman walking back in.

She left carrying one life.

I'm returning carrying multiple.

One son I buried.

One son I buried years before him.

And one little boy who still wakes up every morning expecting Mommy to know everything.

No one tells you that grief changes your job long before you ever return to one.

For years, my calendar didn't belong to me.

It belonged to Darren & Jaxon .

Therapy.

Doctors.

Specialists.

Medication.

Supplies.

Insurance.

Hospital admissions.

Discharge instructions.

Repeat.

People would ask me what I did all day.

I never knew how to answer that question.

How do you explain that keeping your child alive isn't one task?

It's a thousand tiny decisions no one ever sees.

I wasn't just his caregiver.

I was his mommy.

Those are two very different things.

I knew what every sound meant.

I knew the difference between an uncomfortable cry and an "I'm okay, just stay close" cry.

I knew how he liked to be held.

I knew which songs calmed him.

I knew when he was tired before anyone else did.

I knew him.

Not because of a medical chart.

Because he was my son.

When I finally counted, I realized I had spent roughly 1,910 of Jaxon's 1,947 days beside him.

Not visiting him.

Not checking in.

Beside him.

People hear that number and think sacrifice.

I hear that number and think privilege.

If God asked me today whether I would do it all again, knowing how our story ends...

my answer would still be yes.

Without hesitation.

Because loving him was never the hard part.

Losing him is.

...

Sometimes people tell me, "At least you have the memories."

I smile because I know they mean well.

But what they don't understand is that memories don't tuck you into bed at night.

They don't reach for your hand.

They don't need you.

That's the part I miss.

I don't miss him.

I miss mothering him.

There is a difference.

I miss the responsibility.

The purpose.

The exhaustion that came from making sure my little boy had everything he needed.

Now the alarms are gone.

The appointments are gone.

The supplies are gone.

And somehow...

the work is harder.

Because love has nowhere to go.

It still wakes up every morning looking for him.

...

Then there is Darren.

People sometimes think I lost one son.

I didn't.

I lost two.

In two completely different ways.

This year, Darren would have been a junior in high school.

We would have been teaching him to drive.

Darryl would have been reminding him to keep both hands on the wheel.

I would have been pressing an imaginary brake from the passenger seat.

We would have started talking about life after high school.

College?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Darryl has a college degree, but some of the greatest things he's ever built came from his engineering mind and his hands as an aircraft mechanic.

Maybe Darren would have followed that path.

Maybe he would have created one all his own.

I'll never know.

Grief isn't just missing what happened.

It's grieving conversations you'll never get to have.

The first drive.

College visits.

Watching him become the man he was already growing into.

I still imagine those moments.

I probably always will.

...

And then there is Nolin.

My beautiful, brilliant, hilarious two-year-old.

He is convinced he is smarter than his forty-year-old mama.

Some days I think he might actually believe he's in charge.

He makes me laugh when I don't think I have another laugh left in me.

He pulls me back into the present every single day.

He doesn't know why July hurts.

He doesn't know why Mommy sometimes gets quiet.

He just knows he wants me.

Right now.

And if I'm honest...

that scares me sometimes.

Not because I don't love him enough.

Because I worry that one day he'll remember a mommy who was grieving more than she was playing.

I don't want grief to become part of his childhood.

I want him to remember dance parties in the kitchen.

Books before bed.

Vacation pictures.

Belly laughs.

I want him to remember joy.

Not because our family hasn't known heartbreak.

But because heartbreak doesn't get to write his entire story.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

There are moments when I look at Darryl and realize we're grieving in completely different languages.

People see me cry.

They hear me talk about my boys.

They read my words.

My grief is visible.

His usually isn't.

He's the kind of man who starts looking for a solution before most people have even identified the problem. That's how God wired him. He thinks like an engineer. He works like an aircraft mechanic. Find what's broken. Figure out why. Fix it.

But there isn't a wrench for this.

There isn't a manual for how to put your wife back together after she has buried two sons.

Sometimes I catch him watching me when he thinks I'm not looking.

I know that look now.

It's the look of a man who would take this pain into his own body if he could.

He can't.

So instead, he asks if I've eaten.

He takes Nolin outside so I can sit in the quiet for a few minutes.

He reaches for my hand in the middle of the night.

He keeps showing up.

I've learned that love doesn't always sound like poetry.

Sometimes it sounds like, "I'll get him."

Sometimes it sounds like, "Go lie down."

Sometimes it doesn't sound like anything at all.

Sometimes love is just another person refusing to leave.

Sometimes he gets it ALL WRONG.....but Grace

...

My Mommy has refused to leave too.

But that's what real MOMMIES do!

There were days I wasn't kind.

Days when grief made me defensive.

Days when I pushed away the very people trying to hold me together.

She never saw her child this affected by grief.

She saw through it.

She knew I wasn't trying to hurt her.

I was trying to survive.

When I look back over the last ten years, I realize she has quietly stood behind some of the hardest moments of my life.

Not trying to become the hero.

Not asking for recognition.

Just standing close enough that if I fell, she would already be there.

I don't know if we celebrate people like that enough.

We celebrate the loud supporters.

The ones with microphones.

The ones who organize fundraisers.

But there is another kind of love.

The kind that simply stays.

I have learned that staying is one of the holiest things another person can do.

Pops has loved me that way too.

Steady.

Calm.

Never demanding that I grieve differently.

Never rushing me toward healing because my pain made someone else uncomfortable.

Just there.

The older I get, the more I understand that consistency is one of the purest expressions of love.

It's easy to show up once.

It's much harder to show up for years.

My Bonus Mom has shown me that family is bigger than biology.

And my Dad...

Life didn't give us the easiest road.

We have lost years we can never get back.

But God has a beautiful way of writing new chapters where everyone else assumes the story is over.

Our relationship reminds me that redemption doesn't erase the past.

It gives the future somewhere to stand.

...

People ask me all the time how they can help.

The truth is...

most people ask right after a funeral.

Very few ask eight months later.

Or a year later.

Or five years later.

The casseroles stop.

The flowers stop.

The text messages become less frequent.

Life moves forward for everyone else.

It doesn't move forward the same way for the family living with the empty chair.

I don't need people to fix my grief.

I don't expect anyone to carry it for me.

But I do hope people remember.

Remember that Jaxon had a birthday.

Remember that Darren lived.

Remember that my brother existed.

Remember that anniversaries don't get easier simply because more time has passed.

The calendar keeps moving.

A mother's heart doesn't.

...

In a few weeks, our family will mark the first anniversary of losing my brother.

Sometimes I think grief has been measuring my life in anniversaries instead of years.

One date blends into another.

One loss reaches over and shakes hands with the next.

People ask how I've survived so much.

I honestly don't know.

Some days, I don't feel like I have.

Some days, survival looks surprisingly ordinary.

Packing Nolin's diaper bag.

Answering an email.

Folding a load of laundry.

Stopping at the grocery store.

Going to work.

Praying in the car before I walk inside because I don't know if I have enough strength for the day ahead.

Those moments don't look extraordinary.

But they are.

Because every ordinary thing I do now has to pass through extraordinary grief first.

...

There is one prayer I have prayed more than any other.

It has never been for answers.

It has never been, "God, tell me why."

It has never been, "Take this pain away."

If I'm honest...

I don't even know who I would be without it now.

My prayer has always been much smaller.

Or maybe much bigger.

"Lord...

Just let me see him once."

Not here.

I know where he is.

I know he is whole.

I know he is healed.

I know he can run.

I know he can laugh.

I know he can say every word I longed to hear.

I don't need Heaven explained to me.

I just want one dream.

One dream where he looks at me with bright eyes...

wraps his arms around my neck...

and says,

"Hi, Mommy."

Just once.

That's all I've ever asked.

Maybe that prayer won't be answered until I see Jesus.

If that's His will, then I'll wait.

But I don't think there has been a single night since November 22, 2025, that I haven't hoped tonight might be the night.

Hope has become very quiet in my life.

It no longer shouts.

It whispers.

And some nights...

a whisper is enough to help me fall asleep.

I used to think surviving meant getting stronger.

Now I KNOW surviving means becoming softer.

There was a time when I believed if I worked hard enough, prayed long enough, organized enough, loved enough, I could outwork almost anything.

That's who I was.

A planner.

A problem solver.

A woman who could carry an impossible load because someone had to.

Then life handed me things that couldn't be organized.

A birth injury.

Hospital rooms.

Funeral homes.

Death certificates.

An autoimmune disease that doesn't care how determined I am.

There are some mountains you don't climb.

You simply learn to live beside them.

...

People have called me strong more times than I can count.

I know they mean it as a compliment.

But if I'm honest...

I don't feel strong.

I feel loved.

There is a difference.

Strength suggests I did this on my own.

I didn't.

When I couldn't pray, someone prayed for me.

When I couldn't stand, someone stood beside me.

When I couldn't see tomorrow, someone reminded me it would come anyway.

My village has held pieces of me that I no longer had the strength to carry.

Some people brought meals.

Some brought flowers.

Some brought laughter.

Some simply brought themselves.

Never underestimate the ministry of showing up.

You don't have to know what to say.

Most of the time, there aren't any words.

Just don't disappear.

...

One of the hardest parts of this season has been realizing how uncomfortable grief makes people.

Not because they're cruel.

Because they don't know what to do.

They'll mention my job.

They'll ask about my health.

They'll ask how Nolin is growing.

Sometimes they'll talk to me for twenty minutes without saying either of my boys' names.

I know they're trying to protect me.

But here's what I wish people understood.

You will never remind me that my sons died.

I haven't forgotten.

Not for one second.

You don't introduce grief into the room.

It was already sitting beside me before you arrived.

When you say their names...

you don't make me sad.

You make me feel like they mattered to you too.

That is one of the greatest gifts you can give a grieving parent.

Remember them out loud.

...

If you've never buried a child, I hope you never have to understand this.

But if you know someone who has...

please don't stop checking on them because time has passed.

The first week is overwhelming.

The first month is exhausting.

The first year is unimaginable.

But the second year...

that's when the world quietly expects you to have figured it out.

That's when invitations slow down.

Phone calls become less frequent.

People assume you've found your new normal.

The truth is...

there is no normal after burying your child.

There is only learning how to carry what will never become light.

...

This season has taught me something I never wanted to learn.

Healing isn't forgetting.

Healing isn't moving on.

Healing isn't leaving your loved one behind.

Healing is learning how to carry love into a life that looks nothing like the one you planned.

It is laughing without guilt.

It is crying without apology.

It is celebrating Nolin without believing it dishonors Darren or Jaxon.

It is talking about my boys in the present tense when I'm talking about the impact they still have on my life.

Because they are still changing me.

Every single day.

...

So if you ask me who I am now...

I won't start with my career.

Or my degrees.

Or the books I've written.

Or the stages I've stood on.

I'll tell you I'm a daughter.

I'm Darryl's wife.

I'm Mama to Darren.

I'm Mama Lion to Jaxon.

I'm Mommy to Nolin.

Everything else is simply what I do.

Those five relationships are who I am.

They have shaped every part of me.

The joyful parts.

The broken parts.

The hopeful parts.

The parts still learning to breathe again.

...

And maybe that's why I wrote this.

Not because I need the world to know my story.

But because every grieving family has the same quiet fear.

That one day, the people they love will stop being remembered.

I don't think that's because people stop caring.

I think life gets busy.

Children grow up.

Jobs change.

Calendars fill.

Time keeps moving.

But love asks us to remember anyway.

So today, I'm asking you for something simple.

When July comes...

think of my boys.

When November comes...

think of my boys.

If you see Elmo...

smile and think of Jaxon.

If you see a teenage boy learning to drive...

say a quiet prayer for Darren.

If you think of me...

don't worry about finding the perfect words.

Just remind me that you remembered.

Because love isn't measured by having the right thing to say.

Love is measured by refusing to forget.

And if, years from now, someone asks you about my life...

I hope you don't begin with tragedy.

I hope you tell them this.

She loved fiercely.

She loved faithfully.

She loved her family with everything she had.

And even after her heart was broken more than once...

she never stopped loving.

If that's what people remember about me...

then they will remember my boys too.

And somehow...

that feels like enough.

P.S.

If you've read this far, thank you for carrying my heart so gently.

There is one last thing I want to say.

Many of you have walked through life with me for years. You've watched me show up at hospital rooms, celebrate your victories, grieve beside you, pray with you, cook meals, send encouragement, sit in silence, and simply be present. I never kept score because love doesn't.

But I do believe there are seasons in life.

There are seasons for sowing.

And there are seasons for reaping.

I believe, with every part of me, that this is one of the hardest seasons of my life. Between grieving my boys, returning to work, walking through serious health challenges, and simply trying to be the wife and mommy God has called me to be, I don't always have the capacity I once did.

So if God places me on your heart, don't second-guess it.

Call.

Text.

Stop by.

Invite me to lunch.

Drop a meal at the door.

Sit with me in silence.

Pray for me.

Laugh with me.

Remember my boys.

Or simply remind me that I don't have to carry this season alone.

Whatever God leads you to do, trust that prompting.

I've learned that some of the greatest expressions of love begin with someone simply saying, "I couldn't stop thinking about you."

Maybe that wasn't coincidence.

Maybe it was God inviting you to be part of someone else's miracle.

This is one of the few times in my life I've allowed myself to say this out loud:

If you've ever wondered whether I could use the love I've so freely tried to give away, the answer is yes.

This is that season.

And I promise, one day when I'm stronger again, I'll continue doing what I've always loved to do—helping carry someone else.

~ST