Some people circle Mother’s Day on their calendar with brunch reservations, flowers, and handwritten cards.
We circle it and hold our breath.
Because sometimes…
Mother’s Day isn’t just Mother’s Day.
Sometimes it’s May 10th.
The day our one and only son, Cole unexpectedly passed away.
Twenty days before his 9th birthday. Forever 8 years old. Life isn’t fair.
Not in the poetic, cliché way people say when they’re trying to make sense of things. I mean truly not fair. There is no fairness in a mother outliving her child.
No fairness in a sister learning how to laugh again without her built-in best friend. No fairness in a father who has to plan a “special day” for everyone else… while carrying a weight no one can see.
Mark shouldn’t have to do that. He shouldn’t have to hold it together for all of us on a day that quietly breaks him.
And yet… he does. Because that’s what love looks like after loss. It shows up anyway. People see us now and say, “You’re so strong. A power couple.” They see the foundation. The trips. The kids laughing, swimming, traveling and making memories they’ll never forget. And those moments are real. They matter. They are beautiful. But here’s the truth that lives underneath all of it: I would trade every single one of those moments… every smile we’ve helped create… every life we’ve touched… to have my son back. To be a family of four again. To hear Lexi’s laugh when Cole did something ridiculous. To see her heart full in the way only a brother could fill it. To watch Mark be goofy again in that way, the way only Cole could bring out of him. The pranks. The dancing. The kind of love that was loud and playful and effortless. We didn’t just lose Cole. We lost the version of ourselves that existed with him. And then there’s the calendar. Cruel in its precision. Mother’s Day is the second Sunday in May. Floating, shifting, never landing in the same place twice… except when it does. When it lands on May 10th. It didn’t in 2023. But it will. Again… and again… and again.
In the next 50 years, it will happen about 7 times. Seven times where the world says,
“Celebrate. Smile. Be grateful.” And our hearts whisper, “This is the day everything changed.” Seven collisions of love and loss.
Of motherhood and mourning. Of what we have… and what we would give anything to have back. So what do we do with that?
We live in the tension. We celebrate… and we grieve. We smile… and we ache.
We show up for Lexi… while holding space for Cole. Because he’s still here. In every trip we give. In every child who laughs a little louder because of him. In every memory that refuses to fade.
If you’re reading this, don’t just feel sorry for us. Remember him. Remember Cole, the boy who made his sister laugh,
who made his dad play, who made me a mom in a way that changed me forever.
Say his name. Hold your kids a little tighter. Laugh a little longer. Don’t rush the moments that feel ordinary because they aren’t. They’re everything. Life isn’t fair. But love like his? That doesn’t disappear. It stays. It echoes. It lives on in us, through us, and because of him. 8 years, infinite impact, forever missed.