Losing your mother changes you in ways you don’t always recognize at first.

It isn’t only the moment she dies that hurts. It’s all the moments that follow. The day you instinctively reach for your phone to call her. The holiday when her chair sits empty. The milestone you wish she could have witnessed. The ordinary Tuesday when you realize no one else remembers your childhood quite the way she did.

For many people, the grief doesn’t disappear. It evolves. It resurfaces at unexpected moments, asking us to grow into it again and again.

For more than thirty years, Hope Edelman has helped millions of women understand that experience. After losing her own mother to breast cancer at seventeen, she searched for a roadmap that didn’t exist. So she created one. Her groundbreaking book Motherless Daughters gave language to a grief that countless women had been carrying alone, becoming a New York Times bestseller and one of the most influential books ever written about the loss of a mother.

But after decades of listening to thousands of grieving daughters, Hope’s understanding of grief has changed.

She no longer believes healing means moving on.

Instead, she believes our relationships with the people we love continue long after they’re gone, and that learning how to carry them with us may be one of the most important parts of healing.

In this deeply moving conversation, Hope shares why the age you were when your mother died continues to shape your life, why siblings can experience the same loss in completely different ways, and why some part of us can remain the age we were when the person we loved died. She also shares the extraordinary story of a desperate moment on a New York City fire escape, when she reached out to her mother years after her death and received an answer she never expected.

Whether you’ve lost your mother, another parent, or anyone whose love helped shape who you are, this conversation offers both validation and hope. It reminds us that grief isn’t something we finish. It’s a relationship we learn to live alongside. And sometimes, the people we love continue to guide us in ways we never imagined.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why grief doesn’t follow a timeline and can resurface decades after a loss.

• How your age at the time someone died may still influence your life today.

• Why siblings often experience the same loss in profoundly different ways.

• The surprising reason part of us can remain emotionally connected to the age we were when our loved one died.

• Why healing doesn’t require letting go of the person you love.

• The signs, synchronicities, and continuing bonds many grieving people experience after loss.

• How healing is possible even when the relationship with your mother was complicated, distant, or painful.

To learn more about Hope Edelman, visit her website. On the homepage, you will find a free self-guided journal and video to support your grief journey. She also offers weekly support group calls, four-day retreats, and individual coaching.

If you are moving through grief, heartbreak, or a season of profound change, you do not have to carry it alone.  Make sure to read Dr Berman’s book, Crying Out Loud: A Path Through Grief Into a Life Reimagined. Also, The Grief Healing Collective offers support, connection, and a community that understands what it means to rebuild a life after loss.

If something in this conversation moved you, reach out at cryingoutloudpod@gmail.com. Healing does not happen in isolation. It happens in moments like this one.