Forever Bentley: A Mother's Journey Through Grief

February 27th. My birthday. My first birthday without Bentley. And I won’t sugarcoat it—it was the worst birthday in the history of birthdays.

I woke up knowing the one person who had made every day special, who had made me special, wasn’t here. There were no tiny hands reaching up for me, no sleepy cuddles, no giggles or messy attempts at saying “Happy Birthday, Mama.” Just silence. And that silence was deafening.

I dreaded this day for weeks, knowing it would come whether I was ready or not. And when it did, it hit me harder than I expected. I felt robbed—robbed of the birthdays I should have had with Bentley, robbed of the memories we should have made. Every moment felt wrong, incomplete. How do you celebrate yourself when the best part of you is missing?

And yet, in the middle of the worst birthday ever, something else happened. Love showed up.

Family, friends, and even people I barely know reached out with messages, calls, and gestures that reminded me I wasn’t alone. They didn’t try to fix it—because they can’t—but they made sure I felt supported, that I felt Bentley’s love surrounding me through them.

There were moments of light, too. Smiles that felt a little more real than I expected. Laughter that snuck in when I least expected it. Bentley would have wanted that. He wouldn’t have wanted me to spend the whole day drowning in sadness, even though I felt like I could have. He would have wanted me to feel love, to know that he’s still with me, just in a different way.

So, was it the worst birthday in the history of birthdays? Absolutely. But did I also feel the deepest kind of love and support? Without a doubt.

Grief and love are tangled together now, forever intertwined. And as much as this day hurt, I know Bentley was still with me, in every hug, every message, every shared memory.

I don’t know what future birthdays will look like, but I do know this: I’ll always carry him with me. And even on the hardest days, love will find a way through.