Twenty Years of Loving You from Here

Twenty years ago, my world stopped. Somehow, my life didn't.

Twenty years.

Two decades.

7,305 days of waking up in a world where my little boy wasn't waiting for me.

There is something about saying twenty years out loud that almost feels impossible. On June 27, 2006, I couldn't imagine surviving twenty days, let alone twenty years.

Back then, people unknowingly handed me timelines.

"It gets better."

"Time heals."

"You'll find peace someday."

I know they meant well.

But grief doesn't work like a calendar.

It doesn't punch a timecard and quietly clock out after a respectable amount of time.

It simply changes the way it lives inside of you.

Twenty years has taught me something I never expected.

I don't miss Garret less.

I simply miss him differently.

In the beginning, grief screamed.

Now it whispers.

Sometimes it still catches me off guard.

A little boy laughing in a grocery store.

A birthday candle.

A baseball game.

A tiny pair of shoes sitting on a store shelf.

Twenty years later, love still rises to the surface.

Because grief has never been about forgetting.

It has always been about remembering.

Here's what twenty years really looks like.

It looks like honoring an angelversary while still celebrating the beautiful moments life continues to offer.

It looks like laughing until your stomach hurts and crying on the drive home.

It looks like finding love again without replacing the love that came before.

It looks like building a beautiful life while carrying an invisible ache that never completely leaves.

It looks like joy and sorrow sharing the same seat at the table.

For a long time, I thought those two emotions couldn't exist together.

I was wrong.

The strongest people I know laugh loudly.

They also know exactly where grief lives.

People sometimes wonder...

"Are you still grieving?"

Yes.

Not because I'm stuck.

Because I'm a mother.

Death didn't change that.

Time didn't erase that.

Twenty years didn't rewrite my heart.

I will always wonder who Garret would have become.

Would he have loved baseball?

Would he have towered over me?

Would he have rolled his eyes when I hugged him too long?

Those questions don't keep me from living.

They remind me why I choose to.

This is the part I wish every grieving parent knew.

You are not failing because you still miss them.

You are not broken because anniversaries still hurt.

You are not "doing grief wrong" because twenty years later, a song can still make you cry.

Love doesn't have an expiration date.

Why should grief?

The goal was never to move on.

The goal was always to move forward—with love in one hand and grief in the other.

Garret has been in Heaven for twenty years.

Yet somehow...

he has shaped every one of those years.

He is why Butterflies + Halos exists.

He is why I write.

He is why I sit beside grieving parents who believe they cannot survive another day.

He is why hope became my calling.

His life lasted just one beautiful year.

His legacy has reached thousands.

That's the thing about love.

It refuses to stay inside the boundaries of time.

Forever one. Forever loved.

Twenty years.

It's hard to believe I've spent more of my life missing you than I had the privilege of holding you.

Yet somehow, love has never kept track of time.

It still finds you.

In quiet moments.

In loud laughter.

In butterflies.

In baseball games.

In sunsets.

In the work I do.

In every grieving parent who reminds me why your story still matters.

Your footprints are no longer tiny, Garret.

They've become part of the path I now help others walk.

What an incredible legacy for one little life.

Tomorrow marks twenty years since I kissed your sweet face goodbye.

Not a day passes that I don't wish I could have watched you grow.

But every day, I choose to keep growing because I was blessed to be your mom.

That is the promise I have quietly kept all these years.

So today, I won't only mourn the years we've been apart.

I'll celebrate the love that has carried me through every one of them.

Twenty years later...

I still love you.

I still miss you.

I still carry you.

Always.

Love, Mommy

To the parent reading this...

If today is your own angelversary—whether it's one year or twenty—please know this:

Your grief is not evidence that you're stuck.

It's evidence that you loved deeply.

And that love deserves to be carried, not hidden.

You don't have to choose between honoring the child you lost and living the life still in front of you.

You can do both.

You can smile without guilt.

You can laugh without betrayal.

You can build a beautiful life while still carrying an immeasurable loss.

Those things were never meant to compete.

There is no finish line in grief.

There is only love learning a new language.

Twenty years has taught me that healing doesn't mean leaving your child behind.

It means taking them with you into every tomorrow.

And if my journey has taught me anything, it's this:

Our children may no longer walk beside us...

but the love they planted in us never stops growing.

___________________________________________________________________________

For years, I thought June would always be the month that broke me. Instead, God slowly turned it into the month that reminds me grief and joy can bloom in the very same soil.

If this spoke to your heart...

You're not alone.

Every week I share honest conversations about grief, resilience, hope, and learning to live beautifully after unimaginable loss.

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And if you know someone whose heart is carrying a child they deeply miss, would you share this post with them? Sometimes the greatest gift we can give another grieving parent is the reminder that someone else understands.

With love,

Angie

Founder, Butterflies + Halos