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# The Chain I Will Always Wear
- URL: https://www.aquietshelf.com/the-chain-i-will-always-wear/
- Published: 2026-10-19T08:05:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-19T08:04:59.000Z
- Author: Brian

I wear a silver chain every day.

It was a gift from my mother.

Today marks four years since I lost her.

She didn’t want to go. She wanted to live. And we all still needed her so much.

She was ill for a long time before it happened. I don't want to dwell on that — that was her experience and not mine to tell. What I do want to share are ideas and experiences which ultimately carried me through her illness and passing. Not around it. Not past it. Through it.

When I was a teenager, years before my mother ever fell ill, I had an extremely vivid dream which I will never forget.

In the dream, I was alone and utterly inconsolable — sobbing at the thought of having lost my mother. There was no context or specific situation. Only darkness, loss, and tremendous grief. And then, out of nowhere, someone I don't even know that well in real life and with whom I would never discuss anything so personal appeared, grabbed me firmly by the arm, got my full attention, looked at me sternly, and said to me:

**Brian, you don't have a choice.**

Even inside the dream, that statement and the firm, matter of fact way it was delivered, left me completely stunned. Everything became so quiet as I sat with that simple truth. All that was left was silence. I have no memory of anything after that.

While that dream occurred over two decades ago, it is an anchor which has remained with me ever since.

When I was in my early twenties, I came across a passage from Viktor Frankl’s book *Man*’*s Search for Meaning which* changed my understanding of grief and of losing a loved one.

It described a colleague of Frankl’s who was unable to come to terms with the loss of his wife who had died two years prior and the question Frankl put to him was “*What would have happened doctor, if you had died first and your wife would have had to survive you?*”

Reading this all those years ago shifted my perspective into realising the suffering my mother would have to endure if she ever lost me.

Frankl’s work has shaped my outlook in many ways, and his writing has been with me for much of my life, but that question stuck with me when I needed it most. It offered me something no condolence or kind and well-meaning words ever could – a way to absorb that pain for my mother, so she never had to suffer the loss of her son.

I remember one time when she was already very ill and no longer able to speak, I was sitting next to her on the bed. We were looking out of the window together. She lay her head on my shoulder. She had never done that before.

She was carrying so much. There is no more for her to carry. I carry that for her now.

I have a poem, too, which I wrote for her after she passed and keep in a quiet corner in my home. In it, I write about how much colder the world is now. I suppose I am too. That will never change, but I keep reminding myself that I don’t have a choice in the matter and so I carry on.

After her passing, one of my greatest struggles was the emotional weight surrounding all those things left behind – furniture, clothing, mugs, anything she used often. Each item reminded me of her, and it felt wrong to let go of any of it.

I then remembered a chain she had given me. I don’t tend to wear jewellery, but I always kept it safely together with other special gifts I’ve received. It’s a small chain with a cherub pendant and a message on the back. 

Holding it in my hands after her death, I realised that this simple gift from my mother encapsulated the love we shared. And it led me to realise that the very essence of our relationship was love itself.

It gave me permission to let go of those other things I was holding onto because they reminded me of her.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/12/0a/120a97c0-d295-4d9c-bb70-cdf013b4eea2/content/images/2026/10/Untitled-2.png)

I carry her and that truth with me everywhere I go now.

Time doesn’t make the missing her smaller. The chain doesn’t make it smaller either. Nothing does. What the chain does is give me something to hold onto when the sadness catches me off guard.

Ed Sheeran’s *Photograph* was one of her favourite songs. She would often play it in the office on late Friday afternoons, as the work week was winding down.

I play it sometimes when I’m walking to the office. At times it overwhelms me. In those moments, I put my hand on the chain the way I would put my hand on her shoulder. “*I know. I've got this.*”

The chain isn't there to help me move on. It's there because I never intend to.

I love you, Mum.

— Brian