June Reflections: Grief, Motherhood, and Healing in Real Time
 By Victoria Valdez, LMFT (Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist)

This June has been heavy, beautiful, and heartbreaking.

On May 19, 2025, my mom passed away after a long, hard journey through stage 4 cancer and hospice care. I’ve been sitting with the complexity of that experience, not just the physical loss, but the emotional landscape that came with it. It’s not just grief over the death of a parent. It’s grief for the little girl in me who needed something different, grief for what never was, and grief for the tender moments we did get to reclaim in the end.

This isn’t a polished blog with a five-step strategy. This is me, a therapist who is also a daughter, a mother, a human with ADHD, and a big heart—writing to make sense of the ache and the healing.

A Hospice Journey and a Mother Wound

Being with my mom in hospice was sacred and gut-wrenching. I did everything I could to show up as the version of me she needed: calm, compassionate, present. I brought music, stories, and hand-holding. I also brought unspoken pain and history, because my relationship with her was layered. There was trauma. There were times I needed safety that she didn’t know how to give. But in those final weeks, I wasn’t there to fix the past. I was there to love her through the present.

We don’t talk enough about grieving someone who hurt you. About loving someone who couldn’t always love you in a way you needed. And yet, I found so much grace in those moments—watching her soften, hearing her say “thank you,” “I love you”, “I’m sorry”,  holding space for the love that still lived between us.

Grieving Both Parents & Becoming Motherless

This recent loss also reopened the wound of losing my father when I was just 20. I was so young when I became fatherless during a time I was estranged from my mother. And now, I find myself motherless too—at a time in my life when I’m still building, still needing support, still raising little ones of my own. There is a particular ache in being parentless at the end of your thirties. It can feel like there’s no one above you anymore—no one to fall back on, no one unconditional in your corner. 

But I’ve learned to lean inward. I’ve learned to rest in my spiritual connection, to let God hold what no one else can. And I’ve let the people who do show up for me become sacred mirrors of the love I’ve lost. Friends, soul sisters, my children, my spouse—sometimes even my clients. And always, always the quiet knowing that love outlasts form.

Honoring My Mother’s Legacy

Despite everything, my mother loved deeply. She mothered 5 of us, often with very little, and with a kind of strength that stays in your bones. I’ve found myself returning to memories of her fierce love for us—how she’d give to us even when she had nothing to offer, how she tried to make things right for her absence in our younger years, how she laughed hard and loud with us. Her resilience wasn’t always soft, but it was steady. And it lives in me now.

This summer, I created an ofrenda in her honor, not just for Día de los Muertos, but as a living altar of love. I placed photos, flowers, and candles. I listen to her music and light the candles when the grief swells. It's become a sacred space—both for mourning and remembering.

I wear her dresses now, too. They wrap around me like her essence—colorful, bold, rooted in culture and story.

The Ongoing Grief & Real-Life Healing

I’ve planned two memorials. I’ve helped my children make sense of death. I’ve continued to work, even when I’ve wanted to disappear. I’ve had to parent, show up for clients, and be the “strong one” more than I wanted to.

But I’m also learning to let softness in. I’m grieving out loud. I’m telling the truth. And I’m not expecting myself to heal on a timeline.

Here are a few things helping me stay grounded:

• Brainspotting with my daughter – We’re holding space together for the emotions too big for words. It’s been powerful and tender to heal alongside her.
  
  

• Journaling to release the ache – When the waves hit, I let the page hold what my heart can’t carry alone.
  
  

• Reading about heaven – I find comfort in books—some meant for me, some written for my children. One to help my 4-year-old understand death and what might come after. These stories help us both imagine peace.
  
  

• Wearing my mom’s favorite dresses – When I miss her, I slip into the fabric she once loved. It makes me feel close to her.
  
  

• Listening to her music – I play her favorite songs. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I dance. It’s all part of the process.
  
  

• Sharing my hospice and grief journey – I speak about what this process has been like. The holy, the horrible, the human parts. It helps me heal, and maybe helps others feel less alone.
  
  

• Using my Lens Neurofeedback System - being a lens neurofeedback provider has helped me so much because I regularly give myself Body Lens and head lens to ease the shock of grief and loss on my nervous system. 
  
  

• Creative expression – I’ve collaged, cried through playlists, I even made a book for my four-year-old, “Wellies’ Love Is Forever,” and made tribute videos. I am currently working on one with my 11-year-old. Creativity is my grief companion.
  
  

• Letting people in – Even though support hasn’t always come from where I hoped, I’ve leaned into where it has shown up. And I’ve let that be enough.
  
  

• Lowering the bar – I don’t need to be productive in my grief. I just need to be real.
  
  

The Therapist Who Grieves, Too

As a licensed therapist, I specialize in grief work with children and teens. I’ve received advanced training in trauma and grief support, and this work has been sacred for me for years. But even with all my tools, this personal journey has reminded me that no one is immune to grief’s weight.

Even as a professional, I still need community. I still need spaces where I don’t have to be the helper, where I can be held, seen, and witnessed. Out of that deep need, I’ve started creating more intentional grief spaces—because we heal powerfully when we witness each other.

This summer, I’m launching a new virtual Brainspotting & Journaling Grief Processing Group. It’s a space to honor what has been lost, express what has been unsaid, and move through grief with the body in a compassionate and creative way. It's not about fixing or rushing the pain. It's about being together in it. Stay tuned to learn when this virtual group goes live. We can grieve together. 

The Love That Remains

Grief is just love with nowhere to go. Every time I miss her, I remind myself: this pain is proof that something mattered. That, despite it all, love was real.

I will always be the daughter of my mother. I will always carry both her beauty and her brokenness inside me. And I get to choose how I carry that forward—with compassion, with boundaries, with healing.

Her love for us—my five siblings—was fierce. Her presence shaped me. And now, her spirit guides me. Her resilience is alive in my voice, my work, and the way I mother my children.

If you’re walking through a loss—or tending old mother wounds—I see you. You are not alone in the messiness of it all. This is real life, not the highlight reel.

Thank you for letting me share my truth.
 Sending love to all of you who are grieving, healing, and figuring it out one breath at a time.

With care,

 Victoria