Honorversary

I’ve never liked the phrase “death anniversary", instead, I prefer using honorversary as the day I honor my loved ones who are no longer with me. 

2021 marks the 10th honorversary of my mother, father, and step-mother’s passing. They died within four months of each other from January to April of 2021. Two years after their death, my uncle and two cousins passed away in 2013, and then my beloved stepfather died in 2015.

It’s in their honor that I started to write The Butterfly Years a few years later. This book started out as an opportunity to finish our unfinished conversations. It became my chance to say I love you one more time, and most importantly, keep their memory alive. 

I had a fear of forgetting the love and only remembering the loss. Going through the process of writing gave me the space to go back to my childhood, to relive moments I had long forgotten about, and to immortalize a few very special people in my life.  

It has been a 3-year journey writing and publishing this book; a personal journey through grief toward hope. And, it’s a vulnerable peek into my heart as I grappled with love and loss, life and death, utter sadness and unexpected hope.

I wrote it because I want to create an opportunity where we can talk about loss, and grief, and death without feeling judged, nor feel we have to rush through to “get over it”.

I wrote The Butterfly Years because I hope it helps others know that although we are on this journey on our own, we are not alone on this path.

During one of my darkest days, I came across this proverb and held on to it with every ounce of courage and hope. 

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.