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This is my mom. She passed away on November 15th, 2023.

Ellen Walsh Hosley was compassionate, sweet as they come, and so naturally funny. My father, Robert, and I will miss her so dearly. Her warmth. Her kindness. Her joy.

This is my first Mother’s Day without her.

It was very hard to see her go. There are so many things I wish I could ask her. Just hug her one more time. It’s painful to think about the things she will miss. But what I have to hold onto is the memory of her.

Part of the experience of losing someone close to you is the new clearly defined marker in the timeline of your life. I have spent months now living in the world where she is gone. I have spent countless time thinking over my life with her. Looking at old photos of her.

There are so many milestones and big moments that come to mind when I think of her. Going to beach at LBI. Road trips down to Florida to visit my grandparents. Her annual baked ziti for the Christmas gathering at my aunt’s house. Graduations. Retirements. Raspberry picking all day in the hot sun only for her to trip and drop the entire tray of berries. Driving together in her 1984 Volvo station wagon to band practice or to a swim meet. I still have the trunk key. She was an avid reader, expert Jeopardy! contestant and NYT crossword puzzler (except Saturdays.)

We loved to watch HGTV together. Late at night after my Dad would go to bed, we would watch together and judge the design choices and how annoying the people on House Hunters could be. It’s these quiet moments that I will miss the most.

My mom was funny. Her sense of humor was unexpected. She really made me laugh. She was playful and silly. She had these hilarious malapropisms such as asking for chapstick to relive her “lapped chips” or calling the Great British Bakeoff judge “Paul Christmas”.

She had this style of doodling. On newspapers. On junk mail. On old grocery lists. It’s hard to describe. It’s a series of simple shapes repeated over and over again forming a tapestry. It’s sad to think of the thousands of these drawings there were just tossed away. I would love to see and hold these ephemeral objects again. To look over a finished crossword even. To have her ask me for help with solving a clue.

Its’s been hard to miss her and realize that I will miss the small moments the most. It’s those every day, mundane interactions that I wish I had more strongly imprinted in my memory. The ease of being in the room together while she read and then napped. You don’t think to record those innocuous moments in as much as you do the big events. I will miss folding laundry together. Going grocery shopping. We had fun hanging out.

She wasn’t a sentimental person. My mom didn’t lose sight of the present moment. The past was not to be lived in. My relationship with my mom has transitioned, the timeline has been marked. But I know my mom will be with me for the rest of my life. In the quiet moments. In crosswords, in trips to the beach. In the springtime when the cherry blossoms bloom.

My mom worked as a social worker her entire career. She was selflessly devoted to helping people. Just out of college, she did a year of volunteer service with the United States government agency, AmeriCorp VISTA to help raise the living standard for farmworkers in western Kansas. Throughout the 1970s and 80s she worked to keep families together and support women in the Newark and Orange area as a child protective worker for the NJ Dept. of Youth and Family Service. She went on to continue her her career as a school social worker in North Jersey school districts.

For as long as I can remember, my mom was an activist for women’s health issues and equal rights. As such, in her honor today I’m donating to Planned Parenthood. She was a lifelong supporter of this organization and a fierce advocate for supporting reproductive rights, health, and choice. If you would like to join me in honoring my mom, please visit the link in my bio to join the memorial GoFundMe.

I love you, Mom