How to stay strong once you lose someone close to you

It seems like only yesterday that I lost my mother but actually it has been 2-1/2 years.  I expected each day to get a little better and I would be able to accept the fact that I had 59 years with my 91 year old mother.  My Mother was such an awesome lady, so loving, so understanding, so kind, so giving so full of life.  My Mother was one of the best cooks around and always served our family a fresh meal everyday.  Although my Mother worked at least 8 hours each day, she came home to cook us a wonderful and healthy dinner.  She was a strict mother and a no non-sense mother.  She said what she meant and she meant what she said.  There was no back talk the way kids do today.  There was no asking "why" because once a decision had been made by her, that was that.  Way back when I was a young child I thought my mother must have been the meanest woman on earth.  I grew up to be a successful woman, honest, loving, dependable and all of that is because of who my mother was.  Had she not been the woman she was then I would not have turned out to be the woman that I am.  Thank you Mother for not allowing me to run the streets, stay out late nights, drink, smoke, lie, steal and all of the other destructive
things I may have wanted to do.  Thank you for being there to point me in the right direction when sometimes I wanted to go astray. More Mother's have got to take a stand and insist their children do the right things in life.  I am now the Mother of two wonderful daughters and I tried to give them the same wonderful instructions that I received from my own mother.  I was just a little more flexible with them but not too much.  My children have turned out to be the awesome young ladies that I had hoped, prayed and worked for.  Again, thank you Mother and thanks for showing me all of the love I could have ever dreamed of but with boundaries. Your children will not necessarily appreciate it now but trust and believe when they are adults they will come to you and say thanks mom & dad for loving me enough to insist I do the right thing.