Greg’s Story is Still Being Written

I have never said Greg was perfect. He was human, as we all are. But he was mine, and I loved him with the kind of love only a mother can understand; and the more I learn about the life he lived, the more I realize Greg’s story didn’t end when his life on this earth did.

People mattered to Greg. Not just the people closest to him, but people all over the world. He cared about the things many of us take for granted, including something as fundamental as clean water.

Today, because of Greg, families and children in a Central Asian country have access to clean water. The first well was completed in his memory, and I can hardly put into words what that means to me. Something Greg was passionate about has become something real. Children can drink clean water. Families have a little more security. And somewhere, in a place far away, a part of my son’s heart remains. And there is more.

A second well is now being built near a school at the foot of the Himalayas. Greg lived in Turkey for a time, and there a group of his friends came together to raise money for this well. He had planned to travel there himself, but his life ended before he could make that journey.

He never told me about those travel plans. He knew his mother would worry. I imagine he thought he would tell me all about it when he returned, sharing the stories and details of another adventure. That was Greg. He had a world beyond the one I could see, and sometimes I learned about his plans only after the opportunity to ask had passed.

I wish I could have heard him tell me about that journey. I wish I could have watched his face light up as he described the children, the people, the school, and the mountains rising around him. Oh, how he loved mountains.

Now, when I think of Greg at the foot of the Himalayas, my imagination carries me somewhere else. I picture him safe in Heaven, climbing mountains greater than any he could have reached here. I picture him free, beyond pain and earthly limitations, exploring a world more beautiful than we can comprehend. It is an image that comforts me, even as my heart aches for all the earthly adventures he never got to finish.

I am proud of my son. I know he would be proud to see what his friends have accomplished in his memory. I wish he could stand beside that first well and see the second one taking shape. I wish he could know how far his story has traveled and how many lives a passion he carried in his heart has touched.

But perhaps this is what it means for a life to keep unfolding after death. We discover things we never knew. We meet parts of someone’s story that were still waiting to be told. We find evidence of love in places we have never been and in the lives of people whose names we may never know.

Greg is no longer here to tell me his stories, so I am learning to gather them wherever they appear. Each new discovery gives me another piece of the man he was, another glimpse of the life he lived beyond his role as my son. I will always wish for more time. More conversations. More questions answered. More ordinary days that I once believed I would always have. No well, no achievement, no beautiful story can fill the space left by losing your child. But these wells matter. These children matter. These families matter. And Greg mattered.

He was not perfect. He was my son, with his own struggles, dreams, friendships, plans, and passions. He was a man who cared about people, and that care is still reaching into the world.

His life ended, but his story is still being written through the good he set in motion and the people who loved him enough to carry it forward.

And I, his mother, will keep telling it.

I will tell the stories I knew, and I will welcome the ones I am only now discovering. I will be proud of the good he did, grieve the time we lost, and love him through every chapter I have left to live.

I miss him more than words can ever explain. I miss the son I knew, the man he was becoming, and the future that should have been his.

And when I look toward those distant mountains, I will imagine my boy climbing higher than ever before.

Until I can hold him again, I will keep loving him here.

Because Greg was mine.

And he will always be mine to love.

Copyright © Joy M. Mills 2026

MJM (TM)