I recently experienced my sixth Mother’s Day without my mother’s physical presence on this earth. It was easier than the past five have been. This was the first year I haven’t cried. I spent much of the day thinking about five of my friends who’ve lost adult children over the past few years, especially my friend Cindy, who lost her daughter just over a month ago. I also reached out to our nephews, who lost their mother, my sister-in-law, last June, remembering just how difficult that first Mother’s Day is without the person you were so dependent on for many years.

In the beginning of April, I was notified that my book, Catch Me When I Fall, was a finalist to win either a gold or silver Independent Book Publishers Association Ben Franklin Award in late April in Denver. I’d already planned to be in New Jersey during that time with my women’s circle, and from there was going to Delaware to spend time at our condo at the beach for a couple of weeks. So I had to change my travel plans and fly back to Denver for the awards ceremony.

The day before I was leaving Newark to go to Denver, my twelve-year-old niece, Sophia, texted, “I have something I want to tell you, Aunt Donna.” I texted back with several guesses about what she might be wanting to share. Each guess I offered was wrong, so she called me.

When I picked up the phone, Sophia said, “Tomorrow is poetry day at my school, and I just wanted to tell you that I planned to take your book to school and in memory of Nana, I’d like to read a poem you wrote about her in your book. Is that okay with you?”

Tears began streaming down my face, as I remembered telling Mama as she lay on her death bed a few hours before she died, “I promise I will do my best to keep your memory alive for your grandchildren,” who were five and six years old at the time. And now, six years later, my niece was using my words to share her love for her grandmother with her sixth-grade class.

My book won a silver award in Denver. It didn’t win a gold. But even if it had, I couldn’t have experienced a more meaningful award than knowing my niece was honoring her grandmother with words from my book.

Sometimes experiencing and healing our grief comes full circle. And sometimes it comes in what feels like the wrong order, like my friends spending Mother’s Day without their children who predeceased them. But what I know about mothers and the day that honors them, is that it’s the deep bond of love we share with them that’s being exalted, and that kind of love is eternal and can never be destroyed. And if we are lucky, the love we share is the greatest gift we could ever hope for or receive.