No Unfinished Business: A Discovery About Love, Loss, and Living Complete

On April 22, 2025, my mom passed away. Because of the work I did in the five years leading up to her death, I don’t carry the kind of unresolved grief that leaves so many people feeling broken. I’m not a victim to her passing. Do I miss her? Absolutely. Some days the sadness shows up if I sit in it too long. But because of the choices I made while she was still here, I can hold both the sadness and the peace. I know I did everything I could to make sure there was no unfinished business between us.

For anyone who has ever loved someone complicated, you know what I mean when I say it took work. My mom’s addiction tore through our family for decades. It damaged relationships, created chaos, and made her someone who was both brilliant and impossible to be close to. By the time Parkinson’s and dementia set in, a lot of people had already walked away. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Somewhere deep inside, I knew my end result had to be this: that her addiction would not define the last chapter of our relationship. That when she died, I would know I had done everything I could to love her, fully and completely.

And when she left this world, my heart broke—but I also felt complete.

About a month ago, I was reminded just how powerful this work of completion is. I was sitting in my aunt’s foyer when I received the kind of news that stops your heart. A childhood friend of mine, Tommy, reached out. His mom had just passed away suddenly from a heart attack while on a business trip in New York. She and I had been planning to have dinner together before she left. She wanted to bring her daughter, but the plans kept stalling. Her kids weren’t giving her dates, and life just… got in the way. The last email she sent me said she was sorry she couldn’t make it happen, and that when she got back from New York, she’d have dinner with me even if her kids didn’t come. She never made it home.

When Tommy called, I was one of the first people he reached out to. It shocked me, especially since he had resisted making the dinner plans happen in the first place. And that’s when it sank in: Tommy and I were about to live two very different realities. He would carry the weight of unfinished business with his mother. I, on the other hand, knew what it meant to be complete with mine.

That moment cracked something open for me. For years, I thought having no unfinished business meant making sure I said the “big things” before someone died—the apologies, the thank you’s, the I love you’s. And yes, those matter. But as I sat there thinking about Tommy and his mother, I realized something deeper: to have no unfinished business with someone doesn’t just mean preparing for their death. It means living every single day as if you don’t know if they’ll be here tomorrow. It means never assuming you’ll have one more chance.

It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being intentional. It’s about not letting fear, pride, or distraction keep you from saying what’s true. And when you do that, when you learn to live clean with people—not holding grudges, not leaving things unsaid—you not only honor them, you also give yourself a gift. You give yourself peace when they’re gone.

With my mother, it was not easy. Her drug addiction was fierce. Her choices drove wedges through our family. For years, I wanted to run from it all—and for a while, I did. But when she got sick, I realized that my unfinished business with her was also unfinished business with myself. So I did the work. I sat in the hospital rooms after her suicide attempts. I visited her in the nursing home when she couldn’t recognize me. I listened when she told me I was handsome and that she was proud of me, and I stayed when she had nothing left to say.

I had to learn not to take her addiction personally. That was the hardest part. For most of my life, I carried the pain of what her choices did to me. But in the end, I realized: it wasn’t about me. Once I stopped making it personal, I could finally love her without conditions. And when she passed away, my heart broke wide open—but I was complete.

Tommy’s story and my story are different, but they taught me the same truth: no one is guaranteed tomorrow. If you want to have no unfinished business, you can’t wait until the diagnosis, or the hospital, or the final hours. You have to start now. That doesn’t mean you’ll get it right every time. You don’t have to. But you do have to be willing. Willing to say the hard things. Willing to forgive. Willing to tell someone what they mean to you. Willing to show up, even when it’s messy.

Because when the end comes—and it always does—you’ll want to know you did everything you could. Not just for them, but for yourself.

That’s what I’ve learned: grief doesn’t disappear, but it changes when you’ve done the work. I still miss my mom, and I always will. There are moments when the ache shows up, but it doesn’t own me. Because I know I was complete with her, I can live with the loss without regret. Having no unfinished business doesn’t take away the sadness—but it transforms it. It allows you to remember with love, not bitterness. It lets you carry peace instead of carrying pain.

Having no unfinished business is not about perfection. It’s about presence. It’s about choosing love over pride, truth over silence, forgiveness over resentment. It’s about cherishing every moment you have, because every moment really does matter. And when the day comes that you have to say goodbye, you’ll carry something stronger than regret. You’ll carry peace. - Stanley