Soon, Maureen learned her mom had died from cardiac arrest at 52 years old. “When I sent that text, never in my wildest imagination would I have thought it would result in her dying,” she said. “Honestly, it wasn’t the first time I had texted her something like that, and it wasn’t the first time she had texted me like that, either. We joked like that pretty often.”
Maureen described her mom as her best friend. “My mom embodied everything soft and strong simultaneously. She was always in my corner. She wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. I could hand her anything, and it was never too heavy. Maybe she couldn’t fix it, but she was there. She was the softest place to land.”
Recently, as a stay-at-home mom, Maureen decided to share on TikTok about her mom’s death, including a screenshot of the text she sent beforehand, hoping to help others understand grief. Her video got 1,000 views quickly and then blew up. Since then, her videos have amassed over 670,000 views and nearly 900 comments.