Canny Kayna
Hi, Iām Kayna. šø Former engineer turned stay-at-home mom ā grieving both my parents while raising my babies without them. This is a faith-filled space for the mother who is navigating loss, healing slowly, and still showing up every day. š Join me for weekly encouragement straight to your inbox.
your thumb still knows her number
You still reach for your phone sometimes, don't you? Not because you forgot. You know. But muscle memory doesn't grieve the way your heart does. Your thumb still knows the number. Your body still thinks she'll pick up. That is one of the most specific griefs that goes unnamed. The ordinary ambush. The habit your hands haven't caught up to yet. I know it because I do it too. I lost my Mama in October 2024, two days after her open heart surgery. I was 7,000 miles away. On FaceTime with my...
your journal can hold what you can't say out loud
I have a problem with journals. I buy the pretty ones. Soft covers, thick cream pages, the kind that feel too nice to write in. So I save them. For the right moment. For a version of me who has something important enough to say. When we flew home for Mama's funeral, I stayed a little longer. Just me, Papa, and my brother, back in the house in Baguio where I grew up. I went through my old room and found one of those journals, sitting exactly where I'd left it years before. I sat on my old bed...
what if their death is all a dream
I keep dreaming that Mama is alive. In one dream, she sat up from the casket. Calm. Completely unbothered. I walked over and said, "Mama, are you not supposed to be dead?" Already trying to logic it out. Maybe the embalmer made a mistake. Some fixable explanation for why she was still here. I woke up and the question was already forming. God, what if her death was the dream? That's what anger at God during grief looks like sometimes. Not loud. No screaming. Just a question you keep asking. A...
She dressed me for my first day. I dressed her for her last.
I heard her before I saw her. Eevee, in the living room, completely serious, singing ee-ay-ee-ay-yow to the TV while Old MacDonald Had a Farm played. Two years old and she doesn't have the complete words yet but she has the confidence I know she got from my Mama. I stopped what I was doing and just stood there and listened. And then Emman rolled over for the first time, right there on the floor, using those thick little thunder thighs like he was already trying to walk. And before I could...
I wish you were here to see this
Is it just me, or do you experience this too? That feeling that creeps up when the kids are already sleeping, the house is so quiet, and you're cleaning and resetting. It's the quiet grief that comes with a slow ache in your heart. The mixed feeling of happiness as you replay how your day went: the new milestone your baby just unlocked, the new word your toddler surprised you with, the little ordinary moment that made you smile. And then, right in the middle of all that warmth, you remember...
Hi, Iām Kayna. šø Former engineer turned stay-at-home mom ā grieving both my parents while raising my babies without them. This is a faith-filled space for the mother who is navigating loss, healing slowly, and still showing up every day. š Join me for weekly encouragement straight to your inbox.