happy birthday, mom

Today would be my mom’s 66th birthday…

Today, I find myself holding her—and the permanent hole in my heart—a little more closely. I also find myself reckoning with a tender truth: I often hold my tongue when it comes to her.

It’s something I shared with my yoga community this morning, as we gathered together to cultivate sacred ground and sangha—the kind that meets each of us with our tender truths. The said and the unsaid. The known and the hidden. The things we hold that maybe no one else even knows we’re holding.

I told them that when it comes to my mom, the wound is so deep, the loss so massive, the heartbreak so profound, that it feels more difficult to speak. Even though I want to share her stories—her essence, her spirit, her laughter. Who she was. Who she was to me. My mom. My sunlight. My whole world.

One of the hardest truths I’ve had to reckon with—and continue to—is just how un uncommon this loss really is.

The death of my mother, by her partner—my father—is not an uncommon story. And yet, before it became my own reality, it was one I had never heard. Not in my world. Not in my community. Not in the way we speak or don’t speak.

Just weeks after losing them both—my mom to homicide, my dad to suicide by cop—I was stunned to learn that this poisonous pattern is not rare. That so many daughters and sons, so many sisters and brothers, friends and family members are walking around with holes in their hearts and lives from the ripple of domestic violence, unspoken shame, and the weight of hopelessness and helplessness that so many of us do know… but rarely name.

I didn’t speak about the madness we endured. I swallowed as much as I could, believing that if I hid it within myself, it might stay hidden from the world.

I think they did too—my mom, my dad, and so many others who’ve succumbed to these horrific moments. We swallowed. We didn’t speak. We tried our best to hide the things that shouldn’t have to be hidden:

Our humanness.
Our hurt.
The heaviness that, over time, harbors into harm—voluntary or not.

So today, I spoke up. About her. About why it might be harder for me to let my lips say her name, to let my tongue sing her soul and song. Not because I want her hidden. But because to name her is to feel her. And the wound of missing her is omnipresent. Deep. Eternal.

But I was met—with gentleness and with firmness. Reflections that let me know I was heard. Held. And in that spaciousness, so was my mom.

Together, our collective hive let each other voice the truths we so often carry in silence. The things we never say, but are always there, being strung along inside us. Together, we breathed into the deepest parts of ourselves. And we let out a collective sigh—what to me felt like a song.

A symphony of humanness being held.
Being heard.
Being honored.

And with that, the soft reminder: we can heal. We can repair. We can find a way through and beyond.

I’m so grateful to have shared space today on what would be my mama’s 66th birthday. I’m grateful I could speak aloud the truth that even when I don’t speak her name, she is always there. She is with me. Smiling. Singing. Loving. Living on.

I hope, with all my heart, that we learn to tend to our humanness.
To find ways to voice the sorrow and the song—the ache and the aliveness—that shape us. That show us what’s possible when we do the brave and vulnerable thing: let it be known.

We also shared today how so much of the human experience gets boxed into absurd ideas of “uncommon,” “abnormal,” or “wrong.” And yet… again and again, the statistics, the stories, the threads of truth show us: this is not rare. This is real. And it’s happening.

We need to make the human stuff more normal—no matter how horrendous, uncomfortable, or difficult it may be. Which, let’s be real—it is.

This human stuff is filled with suffering.

But I believe—and we agreed as a collective this morning—that the story doesn’t have to stay saturated with suffering. It begins to shift when we speak it. When we listen. When we allow it space.

Maybe then we can move through the horrendous and into the remembering. The reckoning. The sacred transformation. The soul of it all.

We return to the spirit within.
To our Sacred, eternal selves.
To the truth that we’re not meant to do this alone.

We need each other.
We deserve each other.
We are found in each other.

And today, I’m just so grateful—for the breath, for the space, for the light that continues to guide me, even through the wound. Even through the missing.

So please… tend to your humanness.
And know: I am doing all I can to tend to mine, too.

this morning’s alter. held by her, hawk wings, citrine, candlelight, petrified wood, Oracle messages, and sunflowers…

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If you knew my mom, or if you’ve loved and lost someone you’re missing today—someone you maybe don’t get to speak about as often as you’d like—I would be so honored if you used the comment box below to share a memory or a name. Tell a story. Say the thing. Let them be known. You are so welcome here and they are too.

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This space is for that very human ache and all the sacred stories it carries.

And if this share touched something in you—if your own wound is pulsing and you’re longing for a space where it can be met with tenderness and truth—I want to extend an invitation:

I’m dreaming into being a virtual circle, a gathering for those navigating the aftermath of loss, especially the hard-to-name grief that comes with complex and traumatic death. A place for us to speak, to breathe, to listen. A 90-minute or 2-hour space where we’ll co-create safety, move gently through embodied reflection, write and witness together, and remember that we are not alone in the ache.

If you’d be interested in being part of this, please reach out. You can reply to this email, message me directly on Substack, or contact me by email at kerikenneya8@gmail.com or by text at 989-860-5235. It would be an honor to hold that kind of space with and for you.

Let’s build it. Let’s come together and let the light in.

Today, in honor of my mom, Donnieca, maybe do something soft and kind.
Sing a little louder in the car. Tell someone you love them.
Take a deep breath and tend to your humanness.
She’d love that.
I know I do.