March.
It’s not spring. Not yet.
It’s not winter, either—not really.
It lives in the in-between.
A quiet, stretching place where the cold hasn’t fully loosened its grip, but warmer days pay a visit here and there.
It is a season of waiting… and of hope.
And this is where I find myself—looking ahead.
February of 2025, I received a letter from my heart donor’s mother.
She told me about her daughter, Ella.
She told me Ella was kind.
Talented.
Deeply loved.
She shared just enough that I was able to learn just a few sacred details including her birthday—March 16th.
So I made a promise.
Every year, I will bake a cake.
It feels small. Almost too small.
But it is something I can do—an offering of gratitude for a life that deserves to be counted even as it continues to ripple outward in ways none of us can fully see.
Because I know that somewhere out there, there is a mother who would give anything to bake that cake herself.
To light the candles.
To sing a song.
Maybe to dance around the kitchen with her daughter, celebrating…
Joyfully celebrating.
I know there is a mother who prayed for a miracle—
and instead, was asked to give one.
I know there is a mother who aches to hold her daughter again,
to watch her grow, to see her become everything she was meant to be—
and instead, carries a quiet, unseen connection to a life she helped save.
And I wonder if this is, in some small way, what love looks like in its most sacred form.
This time of year always draws my heart to Easter.
To another mother.
Mary, mother of Jesus stood at the edge of unimaginable loss, watching her son—Jesus Christ—give everything.
She, too, knew what it was to love deeply and to let go.
To hold both grief and purpose in the same breath.
I can’t help but think of her in this in-between season—
between sorrow and resurrection,
between what was and what would be.
Because March feels like that, too.
A space where hearts hold both breaking and healing.
Where loss and life exist side by side.
Each heartbeat I carry is a quiet reminder:
that love does not disappear.
It transforms.
It heals.
It rises again in ways we never expect.
So this March, I will bake a cake.
I will remember her name.
I will honor her life the only way I know how.
And I will hold space for the mystery of it all—
for grief and gratitude,
for endings and beginnings,
for the quiet miracle of living in the in-between.
Because even here—
especially here—
hope is rising.
Witness Marks 