It was 11:00 at night in the fall of 2009 when the call woke us up from the beginning of sleep. I was nestled against my sleeping eight-month-old daughter, my husband next to me and our three-year-old son asleep upstairs. I'd been expecting this call, but it didn't make it any easier.

"She's gone," my dad said, his voice cracking over the phone. He and my younger brother, Nick, had been sitting with my mom as she died at the home I grew up in in Portland, and I had been three hours to the north at home in Seattle. I hung up the phone and cried, trying to not wake the sleeping baby next to me. I'd do my best to sleep for a few hours, then pack her and the rest of the family into the car for a trip down for our final goodbyes.  

I'd spent the last year sandwiched between two worlds. In one, I was happily expecting and gave birth to our second child, and in the other, I was saying a long, slow goodbye to my wonderful mom during her battle with brain cancer. There were many trips back and forth while heavily pregnant and with a newborn in tow. My husband and I developed a haphazard routine for these visits. We'd book a last-minute hotel near my parent's house so we wouldn't disturb my mom with constant kid noise, and I'd leave my newborn and three year old with him to be with my mom and dad. I'd race to meet up every two to three hours so I could nurse my hungry daughter and then head back to be with my parents. On other visits, I would bring just the baby with me and drive the three hour trip on my own, sometimes with her wailing in her seat, spend a night or two, and drive back accompanied by more wailing. I remember once pulling over at a rest stop and crying right along with her. That blur of a year was easily the hardest of my life, and I spent most of it in exhausted tears wishing I could be in two places at the same time, wishing I could be two people--a mother and a daughter--in a situation that constantly seemed to pit those roles against each other.  

It's been almost seven years now since she died, and it's incredible how fresh these memories still are. It would be disingenuous of me to say that time heals all wounds, or that it gets better. It would be more accurate to say that it gets different. My mom was my biggest supporter and cheerleader, and it was only after she died that I realized how much I relied on her for a boost when I needed it, for a reality check when I was beating myself up over my parenting, and for a look at my kids through unconditionally loving eyes that sometimes I wasn't capable of. I've had to learn how to seek that affirmation elsewhere, and to even ask for it when I really need it. Seeing grandparents with their grandchildren is still hard. Just recently, I had to leave a cafe in tears because seeing a grandmother lovingly play with her granddaughter in the play area was too much for me and I was overwhelmed by feelings of loss, angry at what my kids had been cheated out of by cancer. But at the same time, if I look around, I see all of the ways in which that void has been filled. They have wonderful relationships with some of the older people at our church, and with neighbors. Their remaining grandparents are loving and involved. I've had to seek out and foster some of those relationships in a way that hasn't always come naturally to me, but I try to make myself step out of my comfort zone for the sake of my kids.

This last one may be the hardest one to admit. My mom was a wonderful mother and so much of what I do as a parent is based on my experience growing up with her, but losing my mom also set me free from some of the expectations for motherhood that weren't working for me, often ones that I didn't even realize I was holding on to. Losing her made me question some assumptions I had about my own role, and try out some things that I know I wouldn't have felt as free to try if she was alive. As I said, that's difficult to say out loud, but as I look back on the years since I lost her, I must acknowledge that it's a reality.

In the time since, my kids have grown up. We had another baby and now have a ten, seven and two-year-old. In many ways the birth of our youngest both highlighted the absence of my mom and provided some healing for it. It cemented the feeling that while I don't like doing this without her and will always miss her, I can and am doing it. Calling my dad in the minutes after she was born brought tears of gratitude and joy, but also tears of loss as we talked about Mom and her absence in that moment.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the backyard of a house my mom never saw, watching a little girl she never met blow bubbles and run through the grass. Every day, month, and year feels a little further away from who I was when she was alive. It's hard to know where to end this essay, because there's really no end to this story. She continues on as a part of our lives, just in different ways. Especially if I have a tough day, I'll talk with my kids about why I'm sad and share with my kids stories and memories about her. I don't want them to grow up feeling like grief is something you hide away from the people you love. Over the years, my grief has evolved from anger and sadness into something that has become a part of who I am, something that can be shared and turned into almost a bittersweet joy. Having my children to share this with as they grow has been a true blessing. My path of grief could have been very different without them, could have easily fossilized into something hard and bitter, a place to remain safe but stilted. Instead, my kids forced me to keep moving forward through the pain, to keep getting up every day, to find ways to keep growing with it, to allow it even to shape me. And although my kids are growing up without my mom, I know that in this way she will always be a part of them.       

Kate Moscato Leen is a musician and mother who lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and three kids.