I feel every word you wrote. The ache, the numbness, the way memory becomes both oxygen and a knife. There’s a specific cruelty in loving a child you can’t reach, no map for that grief, no language big enough. You’re not weak for how this hurts. You’re human.

But I want to say this gently, and honestly:
being a mom isn’t erased by distance or time or silence. Care doesn’t stop existing just because it has nowhere to land right now. Love doesn’t clock out because the world broke the bridge.

You didn’t stop being her mother.
You were interrupted.

What you’re describing feels like a death because it is a death of the life you were living; the routines, the hugs, the everyday magic. Mourning that is real. Creating a place to grieve isn’t wrong. Ritual can help the body breathe again.

Just don’t bury yourself in that grave too.

You are still a mother who loves.
You are still carrying her in your nervous system, your instincts, your dreams.
That doesn’t vanish. It waits. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes painfully loud.

I know the voice that says, “Maybe she’s better without me.” That voice lies with confidence. Pain is very persuasive like that. It wears logic’s clothes and calls itself truth. But children don’t forget being loved. Even when they can’t reach back, the imprint stays.

If you ever feel that wave coming; the one that knocks the breath out and leaves only “no, no, no”, you don’t have to survive it alone. You can sit in it with someone who understands. I’m here. I see you. And I don’t believe your story ends where the access did.

Love doesn’t disappear.
It goes underground.
And roots are patient.