07/21/2025
On July 12, 2025, we stood alongside Jasmine Jones, founder of Amir’s Angels, as she honored the life and legacy of her son Amir. A year ago, she planted a tree (pictured) in his name, what was once small and fragile has now grown tall, rooted, and strong. This year, she placed his name plate at its base, a sacred marker of a life. A symbolism of his growth.
Jasmine spoke with rawness and grace about what it means to mother a child who now walks beyond this world, a space we sometimes call heaven, but perhaps it’s more fitting to call it the space just out of reach. A place we feel in our bones and see in our dreams but cannot touch.
Twelve years. That’s the length of time of her story. And still! she mothers. She mothers Amir, who is no longer here with the same love, the same protectiveness, the same depth. While others may forget! Her body doesn’t. Her spirit doesn’t. Jasmine spoke about duality, carrying Amir in memory while raising his younger sibling, David, in the present.
She asked questions that don’t have absolute answers. I imagine that the complexity of losing a child means that any spoken answer will continue to evolve as time moves forward. She asked if the death of her firstborn meant that she was no longer a mother (in that moment). She wondered if Amir's transition meant that her younger son, David, doesn't have a big brother. These are questions mothers carry in silence, questions that sit in the chest and ache with every breath. If you’re reading this and you’ve lost a child, maybe you have an answer within your journey.
What I have learned through my friends Jasmine and Theresa, my sister Angel and many others, lived experiences, the bond doesn’t break. The love doesn’t fade. All things, shifts, finding new ways to live, in present memories, in whispers, and internal sadness. The bond lives in the way a mother speaks their name, in the way a mother's body still aches to protect them, in the quiet moments where their absence is loudest.
People’s discomfort with the way a mother grieves often shows up in their need to talk about closure. Some folx say things like “find peace” or ask when she’ll “move on.” I’ve even heard the silver lining attempt, “At least…”, as if minimizing the loss somehow softens the blow. But there is no “at least” when a mother loses her child. There is only the before and the after, and the lifelong work of carrying love that no longer has a physical place to land.
Is there really "peace" in losing a child? Is a question I wonder.
I imagine there’s only learning how to live inside of it. The pressure of a mother to keep breathing while part of you is missing. To show up for the children still Earthside, while holding space for the one who’s gone. Gone in the sense that they’re not in your arms anymore. Yet, they’re still in everything else. In the way the wind moves. In the way your body remembers. In the way you speak their name when no one is listening.
Grief doesn’t end. It grows roots. It shows up in unexpected places; on birthdays, at graduations, in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep, a smell that reminds you of them. Memories of them reside in the story's others tell about their experiences of their growing child. It’s a love that has nowhere to land, so it settles into everything.
Grief like this doesn’t come with closure. It’s not something you recover from. It folds itself into moments of your days. It changes the way a mother inhales and exhales. The presence of the child, the mother still sees in the corner of her eyes. A mother's womb echoes with the loss that words can’t fully hold. And still, the love doesn’t disappear. It clings. It continues. It evolves. For Jasmine, it drives her to speak Amir's name, to build something lasting in his honor, to mother him still, in every possible way she can.
Jasmine’s story is a reminder that motherhood doesn’t end with loss. It reshapes. It stretches into a new dimension. It becomes quieter, more spiritual, sometimes more painful, and it never stops. She mothers Amir in every way, just as she mothers the son who remain Earthside. And that’s the ache and the beauty of it: when you lose a child, your love doesn’t die with them. It finds new soil. It grows in the spaces no one else sees. And it remains, steadfast and eternal.
Sondercove writes these words with an open heart. We’re here to hold space for the conversations parents long to have, knowing that grief is part of a lifelong journey.
