Remain Her Daughter

A wife, mother, colleague, daughter, and friend was gone.

And after her burial, it seemed like I was the only one who noticed.

My father uttered the words, “You’ll never understand. She was my wife and just your mother,” when it came to how much I was allowed to miss my own mother.

How dare he say that?

There is no one person who can dictate how much someone grieves someone else. That is completely unfair. I don’t have to justify my grief to anyone, especially a family member.

In the days leading up to my mom’s funeral, my brother, dad, and I stood near each other, misty-eyed, talking to the hundreds of people who came to honor my mom.

So why did it seem like I was the only one completely dying inside?

Was I the only one sobbing myself to sleep every night? Could anyone eat a full meal? I could barely stomach the smell of food.

And why was I expected to complete all the tasks that my mom would have done had she been there?

I didn’t sign up to be her replacement.

No one could ever do that.

Her shoes might have been small in stature, but they were enormous in heart.

A daughter lost her mother and was immediately handed responsibilities instead of being allowed to be a daughter.

I remember standing in the room where my mother’s casket was and nearly falling to my knees. To this day, five years later, I can still see that room in my mind.

I don’t think I had ever felt so sick in my life.

My mother was not supposed to be the one in that casket.

I couldn’t bear to look.

If I didn’t look, it wasn’t true.

It couldn’t be true.

And yet, somehow, life around me continued.

There were dishes.

There was dinner.

There were things that needed to be done.

I was expected to stand at the same sink my mother had stood at just a few days before and wash her dishes.

I was asked to use her pots and pans to make everyone dinner at her stove, as if she had never been there or might return any minute and take over.

I can still remember how my body felt completing those tasks.

I was there, but I wasn't.

I was numb inside.

My mother had just died, and somehow I was already being asked to step into the space she had left behind.

I didn't understand it then.

I only knew that I didn't want to do it.

I didn't want to wash her dishes.

I didn't want to cook in her kitchen.

I didn't want to touch the things she had just touched.

I wanted my mother.

I wanted to be her daughter.

I wanted someone else to take care of everything while I fell apart.

Instead, I kept functioning.

I grieved quietly for years before finally being diagnosed with prolonged grief by a professional. Thankfully, after hours of work and millions of tears, I can finally speak about my grief without completely breaking down.

But there is one thing I have noticed about my journey.

No one else in my family seems to have grieved the way I did.

And for years, I wondered why.

I know my dad missed my mom. I witnessed his sorrow many times. But I wondered if it lingered for anyone else the way it lingered for me.

Was she really closer to me, and that’s why I fell apart so badly?

Did my brother ever show emotion over losing our mom so suddenly?

How is it that my dad seemed to move on so quickly?

What I struggled with most was not knowing where my grief fit. Everyone around me seemed to find their way forward, while I felt trapped in the moment my mother died.

I spent so much time looking at everyone else's grief that I began questioning my own.

Maybe I was grieving too much.

Maybe I was taking too long.

Maybe I was supposed to be stronger.

Maybe something was wrong with me.

But what if nothing was wrong with me?

What if my grief didn't need to look like anyone else's?

It feels like the loss of my mother pulled the release pin on our family.

I carry resentment for the ways that people did or didn’t act surrounding her passing. I carry frustration because of the parentification that was thrust upon me while my anxiety and grief were pulling me under.

And I carry anger for the years I spent believing that I wasn't allowed to miss my own mother as much as I did.

I don’t love all of the new realizations I’ve had after processing my grief, because now I see the truth in people.

The curtain has been drawn back.

I can truthfully assess situations without my mental health weighing me down and altering my vision.

I can never unsee these things.

I can never forget how it felt to smile and hug hundreds of people without my husband and kids by my side.

I will certainly never forget being made to feel that I wasn't allowed to miss my mom.

And maybe that is one of the cruelest things about grief.

You lose someone, and then you discover all the things you didn't know about the people who remain.

The tsunamis of grief that occur after losing someone you love are not only shocking, but so unfair.

Why am I on an amazing vacation with my family and suddenly I see or hear something that reminds me of her and instantly I am sobbing?

Why can something so small pull me back into a moment that happened five years ago?

I worked so hard to be able to speak about her without tears in my eyes, yet I still struggle sometimes.

For a long time, I thought that was the goal. To be able to talk about my mother without crying.

To finally be “okay.”

But maybe that isn't the goal. 

Maybe grief doesn't have a finish line.

Maybe healing isn't never crying again.

Maybe healing is being able to cry and still keep living.

Because I loved my mother.

And I still do.

Why was my grief treated as excessive when it was simply mine?

I don't know why my grief looked different.

I don't know why her passing affected me the way it did.

I don't know why I couldn't simply put it down and move forward when everyone else seemed able to.

But I know this now: I wasn't grieving incorrectly.

I was grieving my mother.

And when she died, I wasn't supposed to become her.

I was supposed to remain her daughter.

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Written by Allison Burton, 2026

Because Someone Has To Say It