01/28/2026
Today is the day you died my daughter. It’s taken me 4 years to even begin to think about trying to write or hold a clear thought about how and why you died. The bone sinking grief that I’ve been wallowing in for four years has been so incredibly painful that it’s been hard to think about your death and the circumstances surrounding it and every time I try to think about it, I would break down and cry or push it away because it always kept opening this wound that would just continue to fester and never seem to heal. The brief periods of time being around others and their families made me feel even more hopeless with a hole in my heart and that I was leaving you behind every single time or when I smiled or laughed. This is a tribute to you, my beautiful little girl, my darling Julie. To all the parents out there that have suffered with the loss of their beautiful children., “I see you and I hear you. “ I know this is a tremendous, horrible and heartbreaking, loss. I hope when you read this that you realize how much I understand and I’m right there with you as I know you are there for me. From me to you, with love from above , here is my story for my daughter and your children who are no longer with us, but are within our hearts. ♥️👀
Julie Anne 💜
The Weight of Losing My Daughter: A Mother’s Grief and the Love That Never Dies
By Michele McCormick — The Mountain Medium Healer ❤️👀
Part One: The Day the Light Dimmed 💜
You can’t sit in the wreckage and repair or heal the damage!
There are moments in life that carve themselves into your bones, that stop time and split your world clean in two — before and after.
For me, that moment came on January 28, 2022, when my daughter, Julie Anne, left this earth.
Julie was born on a bright spring morning. April 17, 1978 full of laughter and energy, her favourite colour a vibrant, joyful purple. From the very beginning she brought light to every space she entered. She had that quick wit that could diffuse tension in seconds, and eyes that seemed to hold whole galaxies of compassion. She was the rhythm of my life, the constant pulse that kept my world turning. When she died, that rhythm stopped.
The world kept moving, but I didn’t.
It felt like someone had turned the volume down on existence — the air quieter, colours duller, food tasteless, time meaningless. I woke up each morning into the same nightmare: she was still gone.
People said, “She’s in a better place.” They meant kindness, I know they did, but the words cut like glass. Because how could any place be better than in her mother’s arms? My Julie should have been here — laughing, teasing, calling, texting, living. The sound of her voice became the echo that haunted every quiet room.
Those early months were mechanical survival. Getting dressed for the day was work. Smiling was an act. I went through the motions because that’s what people expected — attending gatherings, forcing laughter, hiding the hollow ache inside. But behind every polite nod was a silent scream. Watching other mothers with their children shredded me; I envied their ordinary moments, the way they still got to say goodnight.
I wasn’t really living — I was imitating life, a shell moving through days I no longer recognized.
And yet, even within that unbearable stillness, something deeper stirred — the tiniest spark beneath the ashes of despair. It was her.
Part Two: Signs from the Other Side 💜
I had always known that the spirit world was real — it wasn’t theory for me; it was experience. I had felt Spiritual energy, delivered messages, connected souls. But when the loss was my own, even my faith cracked beneath the weight of it. I remember driving one afternoon along the coastline, the sky heavy and grey, my heart pleading, “Julie, please, if you’re still with me, show me.”
Minutes later I stopped at a little general store I’d never seen before. When I stepped out of the car, I froze.
The entire building — door, trim, siding — was painted in brilliant, unapologetic purple. Her colour. Her signature. I stood there, tears streaming, whispering, “Thank you, baby.”
After that, the signs multiplied. Coins appeared in impossible places — on my counter, in my path — there was one stamped with 1978, her birth year. At Christmas, I dragged out the tree I could barely bear to decorate. It stood bare, a symbol of my emptiness. I turned to fetch the ornaments, and when I turned back, there on a single branch was a pure white feather. Perfect, weightless, glowing softly in the light.
It was her.
I could almost hear her laugh, feel her reassuring presence: “I’m here, Mom. You’re not doing this alone.”
Two nights after she passed, she came to me in a dream — radiant, smiling, overflowing with joy and peace. Her happiness filled the space like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. I woke in tears, aching to hold her, yet filled with a strange, quiet knowing: she was alive — just elsewhere, in a realm that our human eyes can’t reach. It didn’t seem real that she was truly gone!
Part Three: A Bridge Between Worlds 💜
I began to realize that Julie was teaching me from beyond — showing me that love is energy, and energy never dies. She could be in several places at once now: by my side, with other loved ones, and helping those who needed her gentle touch in the spirit world.
Through my work as a psychic and medium, I started sharing what she was teaching me. I could feel her guiding my words when I spoke to grieving parents, nudging me to tell them: “They are still with you. Just in a different way .”
Every message I deliver, every tear that falls from their eyes, feels like Julie’s hand on my shoulder saying, “Keep going, Mom. Help them see, help them heal and have peace.”
Grief, I’ve learned, isn’t something you overcome — it’s something you integrate. It becomes a part of you, reshaping who you are, how you love, how you see. The burning embers that once destroyed me began to transform into warmth, compassion, and purpose.
Some days, it still erupts without warning — a song, a scent, a mother and daughter laughing in a store — and suddenly I’m back on my knees and crying like a baby wishing my own Julie was alive. But now I let it flow through me, knowing it’s just love looking for somewhere to go and so I help others in order to heal myself.
Part Four: The Purpose of Pain 💜
Julie’s passing shattered me open, exposing me to a level of fragile vulnerability I never imagined possible, but through that fracture, the light entered. I began speaking publicly about grief — through my readings, my workshops, writing books, and my mediumship — helping others understand that their loved ones don’t vanish; they evolve.
When I sit with someone drowning in sorrow, I remember myself in those first months and even years later — hollow, lost, desperate.
I tell them what Julie told me through her signs: “You’re not alone. I’m still here.”
That truth doesn’t erase the pain, but it transforms it. I live now for both of us — carrying her laughter, her fierce love for her children and grandchildren, her love of the colour purple and her favourite time of year, fall and thanksgiving. Her fierce heart that poured purpose and passion into everything she did.
Julie’s spirit has become the compass that guides me through this ocean of grief. The coins she leaves remind me of continuity; the feather, of purity and peace; the purple store, of her humour and her joy as well as her love of colour and her artistic ability.
Each sign says: Love never ends and love never dies 💜
Part Five: Living With, Not Without ❤️👀
Grief no longer defines me, but it will always live beside me — like a scar that no longer bleeds but still remembers the wound. I’ve stopped asking why and started asking how:
How can I honour her?
How can I live so fully that she smiles in the heavens every time I breathe?
The answer is simple and sacred: by helping others find hope again.
In every message I deliver, in every tear I help dry, Julie lives. She is my eternal co‑worker in spirit — my daughter, my teacher, my sidekick and my reminder that even in darkness, love is the strongest light.
I now understand that grief and love are the same current — one pulling outward, the other flowing back in. The bond between a mother and her child doesn’t end; it simply changes form.
⸻
Part Six: Reflection for Every Parent
To every mother or father reading this who has lost a child — I see you. I know that empty chair at the table, that aching silence in the morning, that breath you have to remind yourself to take. You are not crazy. You are not broken beyond repair. You are grieving because you loved deeply and there is no shelf life on grieving.
There will be days when you see your child everywhere — in a crowd, a car, a colour, a song — and your heart will leap, then fall.
Let it.
That’s love doing what it knows best: searching. And sometimes, if you’re still and open, love will answer back — in a feather, a coin, a dream, a song on the radio or their favourite colour, shining just for you.
Julie taught me that heaven isn’t somewhere far away; it’s right beside us, woven into every moment of love, compassion, and connection. She is free now — free to visit, to guide, to surround.
And as for me — I am still her mother. Always will be 👀💜
Dedication ❤️
For my beloved daughter, Julie Anne 💜(April 17, 1978 – January 28, 2022) —
My heart, my reason, my forever connection.
You are the pulse in my work, the whisper in my prayers,
and the purple light that reminds me love never dies. 💜👀
