Yesterday I went to the mall, which is not something I have done much since Mackenzie died; that was our place to go look at books, eat treats, and just defrag from life’s realities. As I was getting ready to leave, this mom and her beautiful daughter were exiting a store. The little girl was wearing this angelic white dress, a small backpack on her back with fluids discreetly pumping through the clear tubes coming out of it, and her face was highlighted by the cute pixie cut she rocked, evidence of hair growing back. The cancer mom in me couldn’t help but stop and compliment this little fashionista and offer a friendly smile to a mom carrying the weight of the world in her arms. Not wanting to ruin what was hopefully a good day, I just quietly said my daughter Mackenzie was a patient at MACC before, and I hoped they were enjoying their mommy-daughter day. As I walked away and was thinking about missing Kenz and our times together, I also reflected on the fact that that mom probably had no clue who Mackenzie was. It has been over 14 months since the last day we wheeled Mackenzie down the Skywalk to go home to die (though to me it feels like I did it just a couple hours ago), and further more, I am no longer a cancer mom. To be clear, I know I will always be a part of the “club”, but the reality is that I am not a cancer mom in the sense of we aren’t going CHW, riding up to 5th Floor every week, waiting on scans, all of the trauma that comes with a child in treatment. And as I walked back to my car yesterday, I added to this growing mountain of questions that all circle around the main idea of: Who are you now, Courtney?

It is incredibly common, and probably almost expected, that after a significant loss, there is this crisis of identity; this psychological reaction to the loss that happens on different levels (what’syourgrief). As a bereaved parent, the relational loss, the loss of being a mom, has been one of the hardest adjustments. Yes, I know I will always be Mackenzie’s mom. But I am talking about the loss of identity in terms of not mothering a child here on Earth; the day to day caregiving that a mom provides to her child(ren). And there are so many other “identities” impacted in secondary ways after a loss. For bereaved parents, often social identity, as your friend group often circles around school and extra-curricular events for your common aged children, is challenged. Another secondary loss can sometimes be your once-sure-footed faith. After watching a child suffer through disease and then death, it is hard to understand the “purpose”, the “why,” which leads to the questioning of who the heck is in charge upstairs!? (kidding… but also not…).

As time continues to carry me further down the road from Mackenzie’s passing, one of the struggles is how to live every day with two very opposing emotions: sorrow and joy. In other words, “Do I identify as a happy person or a sad person?“. Our society often stresses this or that, one or the other, black or white. If my heart had to pick, it would say “sorrow… all day long”; watching my beautiful girl die over the course of that week altered my entire being in a way that I will not ever be the same person. But my head knows that it is impossible for a human to live only in a state of deep mourning and grief for so long before dying themselves of a broken heart. And, as my counselor frequently and gently reminds me, “Would Mackenzie want you to only be sad?”. So this has become part of the journey…learning to coexist with two warring emotions at all times: sorrow from losing her, and joy from the life she lived and the years I was blessed to have with her. It’s not easy, trying to hold space for two really big, really opposite emotions. But if you are in the process of grieving and struggling, I would encourage you to allow yourself to try and acknowledge all the feelings, even those that seem contradictory to each other. For a long time, and admittedly even sometimes now, it felt “wrong” to experience any happiness. But I am learning that if I don’t allow myself to be open to joy, then I can’t fully allow myself to relive those beautiful times with Kenz, and there are so many of them I want to re-experience, remember, and soak in the memories of. So to answer my own question from above… I am both: I am a sad, happy person. I miss my daughter every second of every day, and I am happy that she existed and I can carry on her legacy through my life.