The Ways Nat Finds to Reach Me

Grief has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. It isn't always the big anniversaries or the obvious reminders that catch you off guard. Sometimes it's standing in the shower on an ordinary morning with a handful of words from a song playing over and over in your head, words that you haven't heard for years and can't even remember where they came from.

That was me a few days ago.

I could hear the words, but for the life of me I couldn't remember the song, who sang it or why those particular lyrics had suddenly appeared. If you know me, you'll know I'm hopeless when it comes to remembering artists and song titles, so I did what has become second nature these days and asked ChatGPT if it could identify a song from the few words I could remember.

Within seconds, it came back with the answer: Mirrors by Justin Timberlake.

As soon as I saw the title, I just stopped.

Not because I remembered the song, although I did once I started listening to it again, but because only the week before I'd been writing some thoughts down about Nat. They weren't intended for anyone else to read. They were simply the ramblings of a grieving mum trying to make sense of a life that had been completely turned upside down.

In the middle of those notes, I'd written something that hadn't seemed particularly significant at the time:

"Nat mirrored us, which validated us as parents."

I'd completely forgotten I'd written those words until I saw the title Mirrors staring back at me on my phone.

It felt like one of those moments where everything stands still for just a second, because suddenly something I'd written only days earlier seemed to take on a meaning I hadn't understood when I wrote it.

Over the past few months, I've come to believe that Nat sends me signs. I know not everyone will understand that, and that's okay. I'm not trying to convince anyone else to see the world the way I do. I'm simply sharing what has become part of my own journey through grief and the way I now experience the world without Nat physically here.

Sometimes it's a bird appearing at the cemetery just when I need it most. Sometimes it's a memory arriving so vividly that I can almost hear Nat's voice. And sometimes, like that morning in the shower, I believe Nat drops a song into my head for a reason.

When I discovered the song was called Mirrors, it didn't feel random to me. It felt like Nat had gently nudged me towards something I'd already written but hadn't yet fully understood, as though they were giving me a little reminder that perhaps the words I'd written about them meant more than I realised.

I started listening to the song again, and as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror reading the lyrics, tears began streaming down my face. It wasn't because I'd suddenly rediscovered an old favourite. It was because somehow the words gave language to feelings I'd been carrying ever since Nat died, feelings I'd struggled to find words for myself.

There were particular lyrics that stopped me in my tracks, especially the idea of being on the other side of the glass, of reaching through and pulling someone back, of two reflections becoming one. Standing there looking at myself in the mirror, those words felt incredibly personal.

They made me think about how much Nat mirrored us, and how much that had meant to Shane and me as parents.

Music was always a big part of our family. Some of my favourite memories are of Nat and me belting out songs together in the car, laughing because neither of us cared whether we could actually sing. We had a playlist of around 280 songs that became the soundtrack to so many ordinary moments, moments that at the time felt completely ordinary but now feel incredibly precious because I would give anything to have those moments back.

Nat even wrote the Magbean!® jingle, something that still makes me smile every time I hear it.

Music was one of the ways we connected, and perhaps that's part of why this particular moment affected me so deeply. It wasn't simply that a song appeared in my head. It was that music, something that had always been part of our relationship, suddenly became another way I felt connected to Nat.

As I stood there looking at my own reflection in the mirror, I realised this story wasn't really about a song at all. It was about Nat, and about how love doesn't end just because someone's physical presence is no longer here.

It's about how the people we love can continue to find ways to walk beside us, if only we're open enough to notice them.

I thought I understood grief before Nat died. I thought I understood what it meant to lose someone you love, but nothing could have prepared me for discovering what grief actually feels like when it is your child you have lost, and nothing could have prepared me for the reality of a lifetime without them.

I've come to realise that love doesn't disappear when someone dies. If anything, it can feel louder because it no longer has somewhere obvious to go. Instead, it seems to find new ways of reaching us: through birds, through memories, through children's laughter when I read one of Nat's books, through a familiar song, or through those quiet moments when I'm least expecting anything at all.

And sometimes, through a song that appears in your head while you're standing in the shower.

People sometimes ask me how I know these moments are signs from Nat, and the truth is, I don't have an answer that would satisfy everyone. I can't prove that Nat put those words into my head that morning, just as I can't prove that the bird appearing at the cemetery was anything more than a bird.

But I know what I feel.

I know that the song came into my mind before I went looking for it. I know that its title connected with words I'd written only days before. I know that the lyrics spoke to something I had been feeling but hadn't been able to articulate, and I know that when I stood in front of that mirror with tears running down my face, I didn't feel alone.

I felt close to Nat.

Maybe that's the greatest gift these moments give me. Not certainty, not proof, but connection. The kind of connection that reminds me our relationship didn't end on 14 May 2026. It simply changed.

Perhaps that's why Mirrors affected me so deeply. Not because it answered any of the questions I still carry, and certainly not because it changed the reality that Nat is no longer physically here, but because I believe Nat placed it gently into my heart at exactly the moment I needed it.

A little reminder that they are still part of me, that the love we shared hasn't disappeared, and that perhaps they are still finding ways to reach me when I need them most.

And perhaps that's enough.