November 22nd, 2025 marked the 5th anniversary of Mara’s passing and although the latter part of November is always going to be a challenge to get through (as November 19th is also Mara’s birthday), I found that this time around was different.
I found that I was no longer a victim of Mara’s passing but the keeper of her legacy and all of the beautiful memories of our time together.
It was like my relationship with grief in general was coloured by a fresh new perspective. The top-down perspective you get after climbing a mountain.
I felt the emotions of the occasion but not crippled by the sadness. It felt like I was coming out the other side of the darkness yet at the same time I was a better person for doing that.
For a long time, grief felt like something that happened to me. It arrived without warning, stayed longer than expected, and had a way of filling every available space. It shaped my days, my energy, and my sense of who I was becoming. I carried it because I had no other option.
This time felt different.
Not easier. Not lighter in a careless way. Just different.
I realised that I wasn’t being dragged forward by grief anymore. I was walking alongside it. There was a quiet steadiness to it that I hadn’t felt before, like grief had stopped shouting at me and finally learned how to speak to me in a lower tone of voice.
There is a lot of pressure placed on the idea of “moving on,” and I’ve never felt comfortable with that phrase. It implies leaving something behind, as though love has an expiry date and memory should eventually fade into the background. That is not what this moment felt like at all.
This was not about letting go of Mara.
It was about holding her differently.
Becoming the keeper of her legacy does not mean living in the past. It means carrying forward the things she gave me. The laughter. The perspective. The values. The way she softened my edges and sharpened my sense of what really matters in life.
Her influence is not something I need to protect from time. It is already woven into who I am. Grief, I am learning, does not disappear.
It changes shape.
Early grief is heavy, disorienting, and relentless. It demands attention. Later grief becomes quieter, more integrated. It still shows up, especially on dates like these, but it no longer asks to be the centre of everything. It becomes part of the landscape rather than the whole of it.
There is however, a strange paradox in all of this. I feel less broken by the sadness, yet more shaped by the experience. I feel lighter, but also deeper. I would never wish this path on anyone, yet I can’t deny that walking it has changed me in ways that feel honest and human.
If you’re reading this and for whatever reason you are somewhere on your own grief timeline, that is okay. There is no correct pace. No finish line. No universal moment where things suddenly make sense. Grief does not follow schedules or respond to pressure.
What I know now is this: grief is not something to conquer or escape. It is something you learn how to live with. And with like any relationship, it evolves.
Five years on, I am still grieving. But I am also remembering, carrying, honouring, and continuing. Not as a victim of loss, but as someone who has loved deeply and still does.
And that feels like a relationship worth tending.
Peace,
Corey 🙂