A Thanksgiving Reflection: One Year After My Mother’s Passing, and the Story She Inspired

We are just two days away from Thanksgiving, and one full year from the day my mother passed away from Alzheimer’s. Last year, everything felt heavy. I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. I didn’t celebrate Christmas.

Instead, I spent both mornings alone in the park with my dog, throwing a ball, listening to the breeze, and trying to feel something other than loss.

I didn’t want to be with anyone.
I just needed space.
Space to reset.
Space to breathe.
Space to grieve.

At the same time, I knew the story I had written for Yabbit the Rabbit wasn’t right. I rushed it. I forced it. I tried to finish it before my mother passed, and deep down I knew the version I read to her wasn’t the story Yabbit deserved.

I was without my mother. Without a story I loved. And I wasn’t feeling thankful for anything.

How Everything Changed After Thanksgiving Last Year

At the end of 2024 and into the beginning of 2025, something shifted. I started researching Aztec, Greek, and Mayan mythology, not for the book, but for my own curiosity. And then I stumbled upon the Aztec legend of the Rabbit in the Moon.

Everything clicked.

It was like the story unlocked a door in my mind. Suddenly, I wasn’t forcing anything. I wasn’t rushing. I wasn’t trying to write for someone. The words just flowed.

I created a world I loved, with characters that added depth, culture, meaning, and emotional weight to the story. I wrote something I finally believed in, something I felt my mother would have adored.

And now, The Rabbit in the Moon is no longer just a story. It’s a published children’s picture book. It’s a gift from my mother that I didn’t understand until she was gone.

This Thanksgiving Feels Different

This year, I’m truly thankful. Thankful for my mother’s persistence, for more than two decades she told me I should create Yabbit the Rabbit. Thankful she planted a seed I didn’t fully value until adulthood.

I’m thankful for my father, my two brothers, and the family and friends who stayed close during a year filled with grief, rewrites, breakthroughs, and countless small victories.

I’m thankful for Lou, my dog, who has been with me every morning during this journey. I’m thankful that we rescued our cat Sonny from the street and gave him a loving home.

And I’m thankful that The Rabbit in the Moon now exists, a story inspired by my mother, shaped by ancient mythology, and brought to life in a way neither of us could have imagined 20 years ago.

This Thanksgiving, my gratitude runs deeper than ever.

Related Posts

• The Hardest Part of My Alzheimer’s Journey
• How the Aztec Legend Inspired The Rabbit in the Moon
• Designing a New Yabbit the Rabbit
• My Race Against Time to Write Yabbit the Rabbit
• Why I Restructured the Book After My Mother Passed