Grief is the loneliest journey I have ever travelled

this loneliness is not just the ache of missing you

it is the profound isolation of being severed from

the only person who ever knew me in that singular

irreplaceable way, because without you, the world

we inhabited together has vanished, leaving behind

a Mum-shaped chasm that no one else can fill

Others may grieve for you, or even mourn with me

but no one can feel the exact contours of this loss

no one else knew you in the precise way I did

no one carries the private dictionary of decades

of shared glances, inside jokes, and the quiet

understandings that passed between us without

words, no matter how full of people it might be

My grief is a personal terrain, others can walk

with me for a while, but they cannot step into

this particular stretch of wilderness, a place

where the familiar map of my life has been

erased and redrawn in emptiness, I know that

this path, the one shaped by a lifetime with you

and now without you, is mine alone to travel

This journey is unlike anything else, people

surround me, life continues, and yet, I have

never felt more isolated, because inside there is

a silence only you could fill, because no one can

be you, the absence I carry is carved in the unique

bond between a mother and daughter, so I walk

this lonely road, knowing that I must trek solo