December 22nd 2018, a day that changed my life forever. I was six months pregnant when my world split in two. One half was life—tiny kicks, growing dreams, a future I could feel moving inside me. The other half was loss—quiet, heavy, and waiting just outside the door.

It was still dark when my sister shook me awake. My eyes barely opened before I heard it—the phone ringing. Not loud, not urgent, just…steady. The kind of sound that already knows what it’s about to take from you. “It’s the nurse,” she whispered. My heart dropped before I even sat up.

I grabbed the phone, my voice caught somewhere between hope and fear. The nurse spoke gently, carefully choosing her words like they might break if she said them too fast.
“She’s getting close,” she said.

Getting close.

I remember sitting there, frozen. I wanted to go. Every part of me wanted to be there, to hold her hand, to tell her I loved her one more time. But distance and time don’t bend for moments like that. I knew I wouldn’t make it.

So I stayed.

And waited.

An hour later or so later, the phone rang again.

This time, I already knew.

“She passed, she was surrounded by nurses so she was alone" the nurse said softly.

Just like that.

No warning. No slowing down. Just a line drawn between before and after.

I don’t remember hanging up.

I just remember the floor, leaning against the cough, holding onto my sister.

My sister and I sat there in the living room, the world suddenly too big and too empty all at once. We cried in a way that felt like it came from somewhere deeper than tears. The kind of crying that doesn’t ask permission. The kind that just takes over.

Around us, the house stayed quiet. My nieces were asleep. My husband was asleep. The world kept resting while ours had just shattered.

We made phone calls between sobs. Voices on the other end breaking the same way ours did. Words repeating themselves—she’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone—like saying it enough times might make it feel real.

But it didn’t.

Not yet.

In the days that followed, everything blurred together.

I went back to Tennessee, carrying two completely different realities inside me. One where I was preparing to bring a baby into the world, and another where I was learning how to live in one without my mom.

We planned a memorial party for her—something she would’ve wanted. Something full of stories and laughter instead of silence. At the same time, I planned a baby shower.

It felt wrong.

And right.

And confusing in a way I couldn’t explain.

How do you celebrate life when your heart is grieving one that just ended?

But somehow, both things existed together.

Grief didn’t cancel out joy. Joy didn’t erase grief. They just… lived side by side.

Some days, I would feel my daughter kick, and I’d smile through tears, wishing my mom could meet her. Wishing she could hold her, laugh with her, love her the way only she could.

Other days, the silence would come back, and I’d feel that empty space all over again.

But slowly, I began to understand something.

My daughter would never meet my mom.

But she would know her.

Through stories.
Through memories.
Through the love that didn’t end that night on the phone.

Because even in loss, some things don’t leave.

They just change shape.

And somewhere between those two heartbeats—one that ended, and one that was just beginning—
I learned that love doesn’t disappear.

It carries on.

More Stories You May Like

More from Megan Schuler