Ever Forward
“Ever Forward” is a poem I wrote to my mother as a part of The HeartLight Center’s Facing the Mourning program I facilitated in August 2025. My mom passed away on 10/08/25, and the idea of the poem was to reflect how the passing of time doesn’t always mean we’re “over” the loss or “over” the grief.
You may read other works by grievers at The HeartLight Center’s Heart to Heart page.
Ever Forward
Four years.
Nearly four years.
The calendar pages fly by in a blur.
Am I awake? Asleep?
Another “benchmark” checked.
Another mile on the road to “moving on.”
Four rotations around the sun,
dimmer now without you here to see it.
Forty-six months.
Birthdays. Holidays. Anniversaries.
Empty chairs at every memory.
Forty-six months of itching to pick up the phone.
Of sending pictures to silence.
One thousand, four hundred ten days
of trying not to cry in the grocery store
because something reminds me of you.
Of anger.
Of questions.
Of “How are you doing?”
and “I don’t even know.”
One thousand, four hundred ten days adrift.
Sleepwalking.
Dreaming.
Comfort and ruin in equal measure.
And some mornings, I wake
to find the dream is real.
A nightmare.
You are gone.
Not on a trip.
Not fallout from a fight to be mended.
Just gone.
Thirty-three thousand, eight hundred forty hours
battling guilt and what-ifs that threaten to drown me.
Searching for meaning.
Two million, thirty thousand, four hundred minutes
spent in a world
without your laughter,
without your joy,
without your love.
Four years.
Nearly four years.
Months, days, hours, minutes.
Each one holds a million moments of missing you.
The clock ticks ever forward,
dragging me with it
through every second
sharp as glass.
But the pain?
The pain is a constant reminder that I am awake.
That, to honor you, I must live on.
Four years.
Nearly four years.
The clock ticks ever forward,
And so must I.
