I was 13 when my dad remarried.
Three weeks later, I came home from school and everything that belonged to my mom—every photo, every letter, every scarf that still smelled like her—was gone.
“She said it’s time to move on,” my dad mumbled.
But I wasn’t ready.
And what I found hidden in the attic six months later?
Changed everything.
I used to think grief came in waves.
But with my stepmother, it came like a storm that never ended.
Her name was Diane. She had perfect teeth, perfectly ironed skirts, and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Three weeks after she moved in, I came home to find my mom gone.
Not the memory. The evidence.
Her picture by my bedside? Gone.
The cardigan I used to sleep with, still faintly scented like lavender? Vanished.
Even the snow globe I gave her when I was six—the one that sat on our mantle for years—had disappeared.
“Diane just wants a fresh start,” Dad told me over dinner, not meeting my eyes. “We all do.”
No. I didn’t.
For months, I felt like a ghost in my own house.
Diane acted like I was a project to fix. She signed me up for dance classes I didn’t want, repainted my bedroom a pale pink that made me feel like I was six again, and told anyone who’d listen how she “took in a grieving child.”
But the worst part?
She never said my mother’s name. Not once.
Like erasing her made our pain more manageable.
Six months after Diane moved in, we cleaned out the attic. She wanted space for “seasonal decor.”
That’s when I found it.
A plain shoebox, dusty and taped shut.
Inside: a collection of handwritten notes, each one labeled with a date.
They were all from my mom. Letters she’d written to me—some during her chemo, others in her final months. I didn’t know they existed.
The first one started:
“Dear Katie,
If you’re reading this, it means I’m not there to tell you how much I love you every day. But I still do. Always.”
I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe.
There were over a dozen letters. Some funny, some sad. One told me to “never let anyone replace the parts of me you still carry.”
I knew then what I had to do.
That night, I taped one of the letters to the inside of my closet door. Diane couldn’t touch it there.
Then I printed a photo of my mom and slipped it behind the mirror. Every morning, I’d look at her smile before facing the day.
Diane still tried to overwrite my world. But now I had armor.
Because grief doesn’t end when someone tells you to “move on.”
And love doesn’t disappear just because someone else tries to erase it.
💬 Final Note:
To anyone who’s ever been forced to forget —
your memories are yours.
Protect them. Keep them close.
And remember: the heart holds what the world tries to erase.
