Who knew that watching Sex and the City—and its reboot And Just Like That—could hit such a deep, unhealed wound about my mom’s passing?

My mom died last year, the day after Memorial Day. She had been living with my sister about four hours away. I had just visited her for the long weekend. She seemed like her normal self. Nothing seemed off.

But my mom had a long history of health issues—Addison’s disease, emphysema, COPD, trigeminal neuralgia, and more. She hadn’t been well for a long time, so unfortunately, hospital visits had become routine. Over the last two years of her life, she’d probably been hospitalized at least ten times.

So when I got a text from my sister that Tuesday morning saying our dad had called an ambulance because she wasn’t feeling well, I didn’t think too much of it. It felt like another episode in a long line of episodes. I went about my day as usual.

Later, on my way to pick up my daughter from preschool, I got a call from my aunt. She told me she was heading to the hospital—apparently, a social worker had called to say my mom had gone into cardiac arrest and had to be revived.

Even then, because we were all so desensitized to the ups and downs of her health, my aunt questioned whether she really needed to go. The social worker gently insisted that yes, it would be best if she did.

When my aunt got there, my sister and my dad were already at the hospital. My mom had been put on a ventilator—something she never wanted. As it turned out, the hospital’s systems were down when she crashed, and they couldn’t access her DNR (do not resuscitate) order. By the time they found it, she had already been intubated. The three of them made the impossible but necessary decision to remove the ventilator, and she passed away shortly after.

I got the call an hour later.

Even though I shouldn’t have been shocked—given everything—it still felt like the floor had been ripped out from under me. My mom had always rallied. She was the cat with nine lives. She always came back.

I sat outside in my hammock chair with a bottle of wine, crying, stunned, and full of guilt—guilt that I wasn’t there, that I didn’t take the initial message more seriously, that I didn’t notice anything different when I saw her just the day before.

Over the last year, I’ve grieved. I’ve tried to make peace with it all. But then, last week, I was watching an episode of And Just Like That, and a character—whose name, oddly enough, is Lisa—loses her father. She wasn’t there when he passed either, and during the eulogy, her guilt was palpable. After the funeral, her often critical mother-in-law gently said:

“If you don’t get to spend someone’s final moments with them, it means their spirit didn’t want you there. They didn’t want you to remember them that way.”

I broke down in tears. I hadn’t realized how much of that guilt I was still holding. But I prayed—please let that be true. Maybe my mom didn’t want me there. Maybe she didn’t want me to carry that memory. Maybe she spared me.

My mom and I were very close for most of my life, until she got really sick. And when she did, I became resentful. She wasn’t her anymore. I needed a mom—I needed her support—and she just couldn’t give it. Maybe she pulled away intentionally, to make the grief easier for me. Maybe it worked.

Because now, I don’t miss someone to call when I’m upset, someone to give me advice or help raise my kids—I had already started living without those things. But it still sucks. It sucks to feel like I missed out on having a mother in this season of life. Someone to say, “That’s normal,” or “You’re doing okay.”

One of the hardest moments came after I had my second child and was dealing with terrible postpartum depression. My mom said, “You seem more relaxed with this one.” I asked what she meant. She said, “Well, with your first, you didn’t want anyone else to hold them. You were very nervous. With this one, you’re more willing to let others help.”

And in a moment of hope, I tried to be honest. I told her, “It’s not that I’m relaxed. I’m actually really struggling. I have bad postpartum depression. I feel disconnected.”

I was hoping for comfort or validation—but all I got was a shrug. “Oh, well, it didn’t seem that way.” Months later, she said the same thing again, like I’d never opened up at all. And I snapped. “I told you, Ma. I was sick. I was depressed. I wasn’t relaxed—I was disconnected.”

She just changed the subject.

That was when I really realized: she wasn’t there anymore. Not in the way I needed her to be. I’d already started losing her then.

So maybe I’ve been grieving the loss of my mom for years now. But I still carry this guilt—that maybe I didn’t support her the way she needed. That maybe I pulled away just when she needed someone the most.