Spring is here. And that means water safety season is here. And I won’t lie, along with the joy of Spring, also comes the familiar cloud of anxiety that looms low over my days, and the persistent knot in the pit of my stomach that lingers until, at last, winter mercifully comes back around.

I was never a cold weather girl before. I am now.

Most every day through the warm weather season, my inbox overflows with story after story of preventable death in open water. My broken heart breaks over and over again every year.

And I am left, once again, feeling like I’m just not doing enough. Like this problem will never end. I am left facing the awful reality that a new host of moms will now be forced to face the same reality I face every day. The reality of outliving their child.

We lost him at 15. He would be 24 next month. April is coming. How many mothers this year?

I sit working on my latest water safety presentation — which neatly packages the worst day of my life and translates it into a drowning prevention message — in hopes that it will prevent another mom from having the worst day of her life. And I know it will not be enough. But it’s all I have. I do what I can with what I have — and with the never-ending hope of #NotOneMore. So with the sun, comes hope. And I say, that’s alright.

— Dana Gage, Connor’s Mom + Founder, The LV Project