For Long COVID Awareness Day, I belatedly wrote a personal essay about being too sick to write on March 15, and about the difficult mixture of pain and grief I’m moving through in the wake of my mom’s death and the seemingly unending struggle to gain acknowledgement for Long COVID.

This essay isn’t full of hope, because at this moment, neither am I. But it’s ultimately a declaration that, against all odds, and exhausted though I am, I’m still here. So on Long COVID Awareness Day, that may be the only comfort I can offer this year: if you’re reading this, you’re still here too.