December 10, 2022
The world was made better because you were here.
My sweet, beautiful, loving, funny, silly, kind, wonderful, amazing Maegan, I will miss you every moment of every day, my daughter, my love.
Maegan Renae Ward
7/21/89—12/9/22
From Her Momma
a grief journal
January 9, 2023
You are missed more than words can express, Maegan Renae. It’s hard to believe it’s been a month without you. Every day I think of you and miss you and cry and give thanks for our time together. I love you with all my heart, to the moon and back, to infinity and beyond. I love you so much. I’m forever grateful to be your mom. What a cutie pie! We had a lot of fun and shared a whole lot of love.
January 11, 2023
Thank you to each of you who have reached out with kind words about Maegan Renae and sent your love to our family. I’ve tried to reply to your messages and comments several times, but I quickly feel overwhelmed with sadness and am unable to right now. I want you to know I’m grateful to read your loving testimonials about the amazing person Maegan was to so many people. The loss of her is tremendous.
January 20, 2023
Missing you, Maegan Renae. You were 17 in this photo. I was 34. It was 2006. We were cruising in my Mazda3. We had such a fun day! Wish you were here and we could be driving around, jamming out to DMB, talking, laughing, and being silly together. I cherish the memories. I will always want more time with you. I love you.
February 1, 2023
I’ve been reading our text messages. Maegan, I’m so sad you’re gone. You were and are loved by many people, probably more than you realized. I wish I could talk to you and hear you say “I love you, Momma”. I wish I could have protected you and kept you safe from this often cruel world and anyone who didn’t value you.
I know you tried your best. I know you wanted to find happiness and peace of mind. I know your pain and suffering was too much sometimes. I know you loved with all your heart. I know you knew I loved you and I hope you knew how proud I was of you, no matter what. My sweet, beautiful daughter, you will be remembered every day and missed always.
I love you, to the moon and back, to infinity and beyond.
February 13, 2023
I promise to keep doing everything I can to take care of things on your behalf. There’s been incredible deception and manipulation, and it’s still happening. From the doctors, to the police, to the transportation companies, even from someone who claims to have loved you. You’d be dismayed by what has transpired since early December and the way we’ve been treated. It’s not right. A mother should be able to grieve without the intrusion of the selfishness of other people, without having to fight for people to do the right thing.
My sweet girl, I want to focus on your memorial ceremony. I want to put my energy toward positive ways to honor your life. You and your daughter deserve more than you’ve been given. I will fight for you, like I always have, no matter what.
February 18, 2023
If only I could hold you again, my sweet daughter.
If only I could hear your laughter and see your eyes sparkle.
I miss you.
That day we shared walking around Haight/Ashbury in San Francisco was so much fun. We were together. We were happy. I cherished every moment we had and I always will.
I love you, Maegan Renae. I wish you were here.
February 27, 2023
Maegan Renae Ward was beloved by many, close family, extended family, friends, co-workers, schoolmates. For loved ones who want to join us to honor Maegan, her upcoming memorial will be a private online service. Please click the link to request an invitation.
Maegan Renae Ward
7/21/89-12/9/22
Memorial Service & Celebration of Life
Saturday, April 8, 2023
1PM Pacific/3PM Central/4PM Eastern
April is Donate Life Month. We have chosen this date to celebrate Maegan’s life and her gift of life to others as an organ and tissue donor.
Please share this link so that those who love Maegan may have the opportunity to join.
March 13, 2023
This is a long post. I don’t know what else to do at this point. I want my daughter Maegan’s friends and family to know they are invited to attend her online memorial service on April 8th. I will post the link in the comments below. Unfortunately, I can’t tag Maegan in this post because it will be blocked from my view.
I need to share that Maegan’s personal belongings were stolen under false pretenses soon after she died. I believe the individual who took possession of her phone has taken control of her social media and other private accounts. They are blocking my access. I haven’t been able to see anything new posted to Maegan’s facebook profile or any posts she’s tagged in since February 1, 2023. My posts that have her tagged are immediately blocked to me.
I’ve attempted for 2 months to no avail to negotiate with the individual who took Maegan’s things and they have refused to give them to her family. The police are involved and legal proceedings are underway. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the malicious actions and text messages of this person toward me for no discernible reason other than cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
I’m sharing this information now because I don’t know what else to do to let the people who loved my daughter know that we want them to join us in celebrating her and the incredible impact she made during her lifetime. If you want to attend, please add your name and contact info to the Guest List on her website to receive details about Maegan’s memorial service.
I also ask for you to please hold me in your thoughts for a moment. My heart has been broken losing my daughter so unexpectedly. Needing to make end of life decisions and organ donation arrangements while processing the reality that I will never hug my daughter again. Having to deal with the aftermath that has included lies, deception, and cover-ups from the people who were with her at the time to the false police reporting to the doctors lack of respect of her as a valued human being to extended family members being judgmental about what I am and am not doing…. it’s been an absolute nightmarish hell.
I want to be able to share with the people who loved my daughter. I want to give my daughter’s daughter the opportunity to have her mother’s belongings given to her, as they rightfully should have been. I want to focus on grieving and memorializing my daughter as she deserved and as I deserve as her mom. But I can’t. And I’m trying to accept that I have lost that, too.
Please feel free to share the link to Maegan’s website. I’ve been updating and adding to it daily, so it will be evolving over time. I’d love to add any photos that anyone wants to include. There’s also a page to leave a tribute for Maegan. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Sending love and light in this too dark world.
[Re-post from my Facebook account today]
May 9, 2023
It’s been 5 months without you, Maegan Renae. The world is less bright and beautiful without your light. My heart aches to hold you, to hear your voice and your laughter, to see your smile. You are missed and loved deeply. Your life mattered. You deserved far better. My precious daughter, I wish you were here.
May 27, 2023
I remember the day we went to the ceramic studio and painted. I’ve cherished this beautiful unicorn for twenty years. Of course you added a star. That’s so you.
I have this school picture of you taken the same year. So beautiful, your smile lit up the world.
I miss you. I love you. Always. To infinity and beyond. To the moon and back. Maegan Renae, my daughter, my love. My broken heart will never heal from the pain of losing you.
June 6, 2023
Grief is like shattered glass. The initial impact is devastating, followed by infinite cracks, some deep, some thin, all heartbreaking.
Today is June 6, 2023. 6 months ago I received the worst phone call of my life. A nurse from the ICU department in Brownwood, Texas informed me that my precious daughter, Maegan was on life support and the prognosis was grave. She had been brought in alone, abandoned by the people from the residence where she had been staying for only a few days. I scrambled to reach out to people she knew on social media, trying to find answers. In the middle of the night at 2:00 AM, my phone rang again. It was two of the people who were at the residence at the time of Maegan’s medical emergency. It was challenging to decipher what they were telling me. None of it made sense.
Thankfully, Maegan had listed me as an emergency contact. In less than 24 hours, I was on a plane from California. Moments before boarding the plane, her neurologist called with an update. There had been no change or improvements. Maegan had been without oxygen for at least 15 minutes prior to paramedics arriving. At this point, she was displaying signs of severe anoxic brain injury. The cause could have been different issues, but we didn’t (and still don’t) have all the details about what happened.
Once I landed in Texas, I then drove almost 200 miles to reach my daughter’s bedside. Walking into that hospital room was indescribable. It was all too much for me to process. Maegan was warm to the touch, her heart and respiratory rates beeping on the monitor. I could see the obvious physical signs of what was happening, even though I desperately wanted to try to convince myself otherwise.
The next few hours and days were more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced. Maegan was transferred to another ICU in Abilene. Then she was moved to the transplant facility in Dallas. Afterward, her body was taken to Ft. Worth for research donation. There were several missteps by the medical staff and transport companies. There was a complete lack of support by the police.
The following weeks and months have been nothing less than the deepest unimaginable agony. Losing a child is the worst tragedy. It was all compounded by the multiple people at every turn speaking untruths, showing unabashed bias against Maegan because of her mental health struggles, judgements from “professional” doctors, nurses, and police who deemed her life less worthy than others, selfish demands from relatives and other people who mistreated or were estranged from Maegan during her life, yet expected privilege and access. It has been a nightmare that I cannot escape.
I wish I could say the cruelty ended once Maegan passed, but it didn’t. It’s still happening. I’ve had to accept there are questions that will never be answered. My daughter was taken from me, from her daughter, and from everyone who loved her. She deserved far better.
It’s surreal to have so many specific dates attached to her death. The emergency on the 6th of December. The pronouncement of her death on the 9th. The donation of her organs and tissues on the 12th. The cremation of her remains on April 21st. Through it all, I’ve felt every emotion with incredible intensity, from sadness to rage to despair to gratitude. I recently learned that grief brain is a real thing.
There are some people who have been lights of love to me during this painful time. I’m deeply thankful for them. Maegan was, and will forever remain, one of the greatest loves of my life. I’ll never recover from the unfairness of her death. I miss her every moment of every day. I know I always will.
These selfies were taken by her on December 6, 2022.
Photos and memories are all I have left.
July 21, 2023
I cherish this day on the beach with my Maegan Renae and Sara. Just being together was the best. I can hear your laughter and see the joy in your eyes. Today was your birthday.
I miss you.
August 17, 2023
i miss you.
I think about you every day. Wishing it was all different. Unable to accept that you’ve been taken from me, from your daughter, from everyone who loved you.
heartbroken
Countless things have surprised me, but I was not expecting to be hit with the level of intensity of pain when I’m driving alone. I can’t listen to the radio because every song is different now. Tears choke my breath and I want to scream. I replay moments, wanting to have them back, longing for another chance.
I hate what you went through. I hate the people who hurt you. I hate the doctors and police who should have done their duties instead of dismissing your value. I hate how much pain you were in for most of your life. I hate that I wasn’t able to do better, to do more to help you.
I wanted to wrap you up in love and protection. I always believed in you, hoping you would find happiness, safety, and realize your dreams.
There is comfort in knowing we talked about the hard stuff. We were able to keep our connection no matter what. We loved each other immensely. I will never stop wishing I could hold you, see your smile, hear your voice and laughter. My precious Maegan. I love you.
September 9, 2023
It’s been 9 months since the doctor told us there wasn’t hope for your recovery. 9 months without you. It doesn’t seem real. How can you be gone, just like that? Why do we have to carry on without you? It’s not fair.
You deserved better than you ever got. I’m so sorry, my beautiful daughter. I wish you were here. I miss you every moment of every day. My heart will never heal. You are part of me forever, no matter what.
I wish we could turn back time. I want to wrap you in my love and keep you safe. I don’t want to accept the finality of your death.
I love you, Maegan Renae.
October 12, 2023
Ten months ago today, according to your wishes, your organs were harvested and your body was donated in order to help people in need. And you have helped so many, my precious daughter, in countless ways. Individuals, families, medical students, research technicians all have benefitted from your incredible generosity. I’m immensely proud of you, always.
Yet, I selfishly wish every single day that you were still alive and here with us. I miss you beyond the capacity of words. Your spirit was so bright, and also carried tremendous pain. I’m so sorry for your suffering. I’m so sorry there were too many obstacles blocking your peace and happiness. You deserved better.
Oh, what I would give to hold you close and protect you. I’m trying my best to live in this world without you. It’s not the same and it never will be. Everything has shifted. Even though I know my broken heart can’t heal, I promise to continue to do everything I can in honor of you. Our bond is unbreakable and will endure until my final breath.
I miss you. I love you. To the moon and back. To infinity and beyond. Forever and ever no matter what. Memories of you are treasured and held in my heart. My Love. My Maegan. My sweet, beautiful, amazing Maegan Renae.
