How do people talk about their late parents without falling apart? Because I still can’t..

I’ve noticed some people can tell stories about their late parents like it’s just a chapter from the past. They share memories, they laugh about old moments, they speak as if they’ve made peace with it. I don’t know how they do it. I’m 25 now. Lost my mom when I was 13. And to this day, I can’t even say her name out loud without feeling something crack inside my chest.

Most weekends I drive out to her grave and sit there for hours. Four, sometimes more. Just me, silence, and the weight of everything I wish she was still here to see. I tell her what’s been going on in my life. I update her on things that don’t even matter to anyone else, like what I ate that day or the songs I’ve been listening to lately. It’s pathetic, I know. But it’s the only time I feel like I’m really talking to her.

And when I’m not talking, I’m just sitting there, replaying the good days in my head. The way she laughed. How she used to remind me to eat properly. The smell of her cooking filling the house. Little things that feel like a lifetime ago. Sometimes I sit there so long the sun goes down and I’m still just… stuck. Like I’m hoping if I sit long enough, she might actually answer back.

I don’t know how people move on from this. I don’t know how they tell stories about their mom without feeling like the world is ending all over again. I’ve been grieving for over a decade, and I swear it still feels like yesterday.

It makes me wonder if some of us ever really move on, or if we just get better at hiding the fact that we never did.

If you’ve been through this — if you’ve somehow reached that point where you can speak about them without breaking down — how?

Because I’m still stuck at the part where I’m just trying not to cry every time someone asks about her. And honestly, I’m starting to think I always will be.