I can’t tell you what it’s like to lose a child, but I can tell you what it’s like to lose mine.
Twenty-four years ago this week, I was barely eighteen—young, unsure, and carrying the greatest gift I would ever receive.
I didn’t know much about life yet, but I knew, without question, that becoming a mother was one of the biggest reasons I was put on this earth.
I remember that feeling—the overwhelming love, the deep knowing that life as I had known it would never be the same.
And I was right.
What I didn’t know then, what I couldn’t have prepared for, was that love—that gift—could be taken just as suddenly as it was given.
I didn’t know that one day, I would have to hold both the beauty and the brutality of motherhood in the same hands.
I have learned that death is a doorway, one that leads somewhere far beyond what we can understand.
I learned so much the day he was born, but I understood life even more the day I lost him.
To love so deeply and then lose that love in an instant is a transformation beyond words.
Losing him felt just as abrupt as the moment he arrived, and yet, in the wreckage of that loss, something inside me expanded.
I made a choice to grieve in love.
The day I lost him, I became a different kind of mother. A better human.
I gained more love, more compassion, more self-assurance, more hope, more passion, and more life.
I became more connected—not just to him, but to the earth, to the unseen, and to every soul who has ever known loss.
I learned how to hold space for myself and for others in a way I never had before.
Peaceful and calm, without fear.
The day I lost him, I became a greater gift to the world.
Every moment I spend inspiring, encouraging, creating, and loving—that’s him.
The art I bring into this world, the beauty I share, and the light I offer others—that is his gift flowing through me.
And so, I choose to feel it all.
The grief.
The sadness.
The pain.
I let it move through me, shape me, and remind me.
Then, I turn it into something remarkable—pure magic and art.
Something that lives on.
Just like him.
With love,
Michelle Vaughn