When my mother took her life the day before the winter solstice, five days before Christmas, she didn’t just leave me behind—she left me with an inheritance I couldn’t refuse. Darkness became my shadow, grief my companion, and every step forward felt like slipping further into her absence. But the body has a way of keeping score, and now mine has secrets it refuses to let me ignore. This is the story of reckoning with what we inherit, what we bury, and what refuses to stay buried.