Seventeen days ago I buried my mother. Her death was a shock, but expected. It came suddenly, but gradually. She died on a Wednesday night after laboring to breathe all day—May 8th truly felt like the longest day of my life. I watched in horror as her pain came flooding back between doses of Morphine.

Experiencing someone actively dying (what a stupid term) for six weeks felt like the highest form of cruelty, but especially in those last three days when she couldn’t eat, drink, talk, or even open her eyes. Dementia delivered it’s final horrific blow after six torturous years—time that my husband and I spent as her caretakers and advocates. Time that I’d trade all over again to have her back.

I’ve lived three weeks since Mom’s last breath, and today I realized that, at 37 years old, the odds are in favor of me living more of my life without my mom than with her. How unfair that feels can’t be quantified. Yes, my mother lived to see 84 years, a long life by all accounts. (Don’t do the math. She was biologically my grandmother, but legally adopted me.) But those years don’t feel like enough time have been her daughter. What would have been enough time? There never would be.

Dementia painstakingly tugged her away from us day by day for years. At first it was insignificant forgetfulness, but her inability to participate in activities of daily living followed soon after. Alzheimer’s (or olds-timers as Mom called it) robbed from our dwindling pockets over and over until there was nothing left to steal but her very body. And it stole that final piece with just as much pause as it taken everything else. The doctors said a few days to a week, but in the end we were given six more weeks with my precious mother.

My mother’s first gift to me was choosing me and giving me a home when my biological parents failed me. Her last gift to me was hanging on long enough to build some final memories while I sat with her in a hospital room and skilled nursing facility. At the time I believed I was giving Mom a gift by making sure she wasn’t alone. Even on the days she just slept I imagined she could sense someone who loved her was there, and she was safe. The true gift was the mundane tasks like brushing the tangles from her hair, coaxing her to take just one more bite of oatmeal, or quietly reading in the corner while she softly snored. Hindsight shows me that each of those were small miracles.

So tonight I’ll feel sorry for myself. I may even cry myself to sleep as the unfairness of it all steals away my breath. And tomorrow I will wake up and step back into this grief because Mom would have insisted this isn’t the end, I just have to keep fighting to find a way through the pain.