The Girl Lost in a Grocery Store

The Girl Lost in a Grocery Store

By Remington Taylor

Exploring grief, loss, and healing—through the eyes of a girl lost in a grocery store.

Do you remember what it was like to go missing in the grocery store?

Maybe you were like me. you wanted to play a little prank on your mom. So when her back was turned, you hid in the aisles. After what you thought was a long enough time, you crawled out to see if the prank had worked, to see if you had momentarily spooked her before you’d both laugh about it together.

But she was gone. 

You looked around, frightened, your heart beating faster as panic rose in your chest. Other shoppers noticed the worried look on your face and stared back with concerned gazes. But the one person you needed to see was your mom. She was the one who always knew what to do if something bad happened — and yet, she was nowhere to be found. She had taught you everything, except what to do if she was no longer there. She never explained how to carry that kind of burden. And that anxiety — that grief — that comes with it sticks to you like sticky sap on your skin: the more you rub the harder it clings.

While others will define grief by stages, for me grief felt like being lost in a grocery store. You’re somewhere familiar yet disorienting, full of distractions and no real sense of direction. This is what it’s like to live in the in-between: still waiting for the one person who can’t come back.

At 23 years old, just two months after graduating from college, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Before we exited the hospital, I had requested time off from work for a family emergency and retracted my dental school application. There was nothing to think about, nothing to discuss, I was taking time off both school and work to be my mom’s full time caregiver while she fought for her life. At one year to the day, 24 years old, in the first few months after my mom passed, I woke up every morning with that same panic, the feeling that something was missing. The anxiety coursed through my body with no end in sight. Everything was so fresh, so raw. Each of those mornings felt like those minutes lost in the grocery store when I was little, frozen in place, hoping that if I stayed still long enough, she would retrace her steps and find me.

As time went on, my metaphorical grocery store expanded. I was still lost, but now in a larger place filled with shiny new things that distracted me for a little while. Sometimes I’d forget where I was or how I got here. But then the reality would crash over me again: I was still here, still waiting, still lost, and it didn’t feel right to leave without my mom.

After all, where would I go? I couldn’t go home. I didn’t know where home was anymore, or how to get there. And wouldn’t my mom be worried sick about me? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stay right here, just in case she came looking? This is what I kept telling myself.

But deep down, I know that if I ever walk out of that grocery store, I’ll never be the same. I’ll have to face a new reality — one where my mom isn’t with me. And that terrifies me. Because all the dreams we built together are on the other side of those exit doors, and I don’t want to experience them without her.

A girl’s wedding is supposed to be the day she dreams about; I once did, but now I dread it. My mom won’t see me in my wedding dress or help me get ready. She won’t walk me down the aisle. She won’t get to know the man I’ll spend the rest of my life with — and he will never know the woman who created me and made me who I am. This is just one example of the many milestones, the dreams, my mom no longer gets to share with me.

It’s hard to move on, and it’s hard to stand still.
And I haven’t quite figured out which one hurts more.

I know that one day I’ll have to step outside the grocery store. I’ll keep walking, even without her physically beside me. I’ll become someone older, changed — a version of myself my mom will never get to meet. But for now, I’m learning that being lost doesn’t mean I’ve stopped moving — it just means I’m still finding my way in a world she’s no longer part of.

— Sincerely, the girl lost in a grocery store