I am basking in the warm California sun as I reminisce on my last few months traveling alone in Chilean Patagonia. When I arrived in Santiago in early February, my heart would race every time I left my hostel. I took taxis everywhere, afraid of public transportation. I would constantly search for wifi to look up simple things, afraid to use my spotty Spanish to ask for help. I called home often, afraid of missing out on what was happening back in LA.

Every week the fear would abate. Soon I was hitchhiking to a volcano in a car full of badass backpacking Chilenas I just met as we shared our latest adventures. Growing up painfully shy, I often pause these days to rejoice at the person I have become:

A person who feels competent enough to backpack and camp alone. Open enough to express myself in a language I am still learning. Confident enough to be the first to extend a hand in friendship. Free enough to trust that I will always be okay.

Part of that freedom came with accepting death- my mom’s and my own. I remember laying on a petrified log in Playa Cole Cole, watching seals bob out of the water and thinking, “Death is coming, and I intend to make life so beautiful that when death does come for me, I can go satisfied, whether it comes tonight or 80 years from now.”

I closed my eyes, listened to the ocean, and felt the chill breeze raise goosebumps on my skin. After a few breaths, I opened my eyes to a fiery sunset as I surrendered to all that life had to offer.

This Mother’s Day, I offer all my growth, longing, and joy to a woman who lived so well that God called her home early. My first Mother’s Day without her physical presence has been so profoundly shitty, but………yeah. That’s it. Just shitty. And honestly, that’s okay.