One Year Later: Grief, Growth, and Walker’s Legacy

One year ago today, I sat here and cried.

Well, I guess that much hasn’t changed.

Some days, I feel like Andy Bernard from The Office—just sitting here, crying. But the difference is why I’m crying. Last year, my tears were full of hopelessness and helplessness, a deep ache that felt impossible to carry. This year, my heart still aches for the loss of Walker, but it also aches for all the moms like me—moms who created life, carried life, and then lost that life in one way or another.

One year ago today, I canceled my birthday. I wanted nothing to do with it. But thankfully, my friends didn’t care if I canceled or not—they showed up anyway. Stephanie, who will be the first to tell you that her love language is gifts, gave me a bag with a bottle of wine and a crochet kit. She knew I had been crafting nonstop, desperately keeping my hands and mind busy. But I hadn’t yet found that one thing I couldn’t put down.

It took me a couple of weeks to finally open her gift. But once I did, I could not stop.

I definitely have an obsessive mind—I find something I love, and everything in my world starts to revolve around it. That’s not always a good thing, but in this case, it gave me purpose. It let me combine my love of crafting, my love of animals, my love of all things soft and cuddly, with my desperate need to fill the empty void in my arms. It gave me something to hold when my world felt empty.

This might sound crazy—and trust me, I get it—but within days of catching the crochet bug, I knew I was going to find a way to bring Walker into it. I just didn’t know how yet.

If you had told me a year ago that I’d be here now, part of me would have laughed and said, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” But the bigger part of me wouldn’t have believed it. There are still so many days when I feel like I’m back in week one, month one, year one of losing him. And on those days, I let myself sit in that grief for as long as I need to. But now, I can also remind myself of how far I’ve come—and how close I still feel to my son, a child I only knew for 23 weeks, a child I only held for a few days.

Life isn’t easy for anyone, but the courage it takes for a mother to keep moving after losing her child—that kind of strength is beyond words. I keep going now, not just for Walker and his legacy, but for the moms like me. Because I know how impactful even a single moment of comfort can be—the feeling of being seen, of holding onto something that reminds you of your angel.

So here I am, one year later, sitting in reflection. I still deeply mourn the loss of my son. But I also find moments of peace, joy, and even celebration—because Walker brought love into our lives in ways I never expected. He connected me more deeply to the people around me and to so many others who share this heartbreaking, beautiful journey.

Grief and peace now live side by side in me. They don’t always balance out—not every day, not even close. But even on the hardest days, when the grief outweighs everything else, I remind myself:

The peace will come.

It always does.

I just have to feel what I need to feel until I find it again.