On June 29, 2025, we laid my dad to rest beside the love of his life, my mom, Kelley Mohs. On a perfect Whidbey Island day our little family gathered for a private family burial. Afterwards I read and recorded on my parents’ neighborhood beach.
You were my welcome mat to life, my home base, my touchstone, and my handrail. You steadied my balance, all the years of my life.
Always present as my lighthouse in the storms, my guiding light to my next right step, and the anchor that steadied me. You taught me to stand upright in this world, to climb ever upwards, and to reach my hand behind to help the next person.
You planted me. Nurtured me. Grafted me with faith, hope, and perseverance. You moored me, steadied me, and lifted me up to stand strongly on my own two feet.
For as long as I live, I will grieve for you. Losing you will be part of my story from this day forward. This grief will spill out in tears and words until I reach my own finality.
But I don’t walk through this alone. We all carry it, in ways that are as unique as each of us. Some days we miss you loudly and other days we miss you quietly, but every day we miss you collectively.
We didn’t invite grief, but now that she has arrived, we will dance with her until the rhythm soothes our ache.
It all began with a sob the day of your diagnosis, and it has expanded these past few years as you faded away right in front of us. But now that we can no longer share air with you, the heaviest phase of grief has taken root from the base of our foundation and rises to fill the air all around us. We will breathe through the pain until grief eases into a familiar limp, as evidence of the burden of carrying a sorrow that will never fully heal.
Today, as we sit in the wake of your departure, grief is the last piece of you that we have left to hold onto. And while it is sharp and bitter at times, we will learn to honor the emotions left in your wake. Because, despite your absence, the world continues spinning and you would not want us to miss, even a moment, of the ride ahead.
Grief has arrived. She has a seat at the table, but she does not get to suck up all the air in the room. She is a familiar guest and so I am prepared to remind her that in this family, we live on. We love boldly, we embrace both helloes and goodbyes.
We grieve, but we do not drown. We pause, but we do not stop. We embrace grief, ease into the familiar path, because in this family, grief and joy coexist softly.
The space that you once occupied feels hollow right now, but, with time, we will learn to embrace the echo of you that reverberates between us. We will endure a lifetime of missing you with open arms, because that is the price of having been yours.
The world feels surreal as we stand beside the void in your wake. The aroma of grief colors everything right now. Since you left, even the shape of the air we breathe feels different. The colors are louder. The taste of grief lingers from this day to the next and weeps into tomorrow. Grief is not just one color. It is not one dimensional. It is vast, deep, and wide. It is an entire spectrum and once she arrived, she erased the finish line.
Our memories are charred from the fire of grief. But we will cling to them anyway, because they are laced to you. Our shared memories are the thread that will continue to stitch you into our tomorrows.
We love you in this breath, and in the next. Our love for you will always remain in the present tense. We will meet you at the horizons of all our tomorrows.
Our grief is deep because it is the counterpart to our great love.
Our loss is not unique, but you, our beloved, were exceptional, and so we will join the parade of the grieving as we carry forward the spark you left in all of us.
For now, we have parted ways on earth—you went willingly, but we will always remain connected. Our souls will, forever, walk together.
And now that we have walked you to heaven’s door, where I imagine mom has been impatiently waiting, worried that you may have gotten lost along the way, we are tasked with the awkward walk back to earth without you.
But in our lives bravery was never optional. And so, even as our souls tremble, we will carry on with the bravery that will be learned from walking in your giant footsteps.
We are living breathing monuments to the fraction of time in which you and mom once walked this earth. We will begin to archive and bookmark the best of our days spent walking beside you.
Your souls have left imprints on us that will reflect you, in us, as living breathing continuations of your stories.
You, being among the living, may be in the past tense, but in me, in us, you will always live in the present tense. You will show up in different ways now, but always adjacent and familiar to the rituals and habits that your influence engraved in each of us.
You will show up in the parts of us that were molded by you. In our delightful response to a tasty meal. In an escaped snort in a fit of laughter. In the melody of grandpa’s music. And in the twinkle of our eyes when your humor tickles us as it runs across our memories, naked and unashamed. And especially in a cleansing breath when we slow down to appreciate and meditate for a moment in your memory.
The legacy of your “can do” spirit will show up in us every time we bravely face hardship. Your life will echo in the sounds of our footfalls whispering, wunderbar, wunderbar, isn’t this wonderful!
And, if you could speak today, you would say, “A family that grieves together, stays together.”
And so, that becomes that, just as you wished.
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