A mother should never have to bury her child. It isn't the way life is supposed to work. A thousand times a day, I reach for my phone to call or text just to find out about her day and I can't. I want to send her a fun meme or a funny TikTok video and I can't because she isn't there. She is somewhere else. Somewhere I can't go. Somewhere that I want to be because her precious life was so much more important than mine is. How is it fair that she only got 30 years on this earth and I have to keep living? Her life was so much more valuable than mine. I'm just a regular person, a regular woman who hasn't ever made much of a difference to anyone. She was a ray of sunshine who brought people together.

We had her wake last weekend. It was so hard and so awesome to see so many people show up to celebrate her. I had many people tell me how wonderful she was, how loving, how joyous and how much of a difference she made to them. She was a rock, a sounding board, and a soulmate, a wife, a beatfriend (yes I know that's spelled incorrectly but that's what they called each other), and someone who would always be there. I was constantly told that she was such a light - and they all told me how much she always said that I was her hero, her rock, her source of comfort. I don't know about that, because she was mine.

Kaitlynn was the hero. She fought her illness with heart and courage. Every day she went through hell and she stayed as positive as she could. She took things in stride. She fought like a warrior against the enemy that is synovial sarcoma. She learned to live with a limp, then with one leg until she was almost ready to face life again. Then that torturous cancer snuck up and struck her again more quickly than any of us expected. Three days. That's all it took. Once day she is calling me from the hospital waiting room then three days later, she's gone.

She's gone. It's so hard typing those words. I don't like it. I hate it. I'm so tired of telling people that she's dead. I'm tired of trying to remind myself of that. I'm tired of people asking me how I am and how I'm dealing. How does everyone think I'm dealing with this? I'm devastated. I'm devoid of feeling. I'm desperately trying to figure out how to survive. How to live each day without one of the people in this world I loved the most. Mostly I'm just trying to survive. I don't know if I can.

Kate, I loved you your whole life and then some. When I first found out I was pregnant with you, I was so excited. I was ready to be a mom. I knew I would never be the mom that my mother was. I would be better and I think I was. I like to think that we had the kind of relationship that made us comfortable enough with each other that we could tell each other almost anything (well, leave out the sex stuff because you were kind of a prude lol). And we did. And now it's gone. I don't know what to do now.

looking at photos, i can't help but be happy and a little sad too smiling so beautiful in your white wedding dress embarking on your brand new adventure sadness enters my heart as i remember that i'll never see your smile or hear your laugh that life will never be the same again God help me i'm moored in grief putting on a happy face for the rest of the world