I used to think grief had a finish line.
That if I cried enough, prayed enough, or wrote enough, I’d somehow reach the end of it.
But there is no end.
There’s no clean break between the before and after, just the endless middle where everything hurts and nothing feels the same.
Some days I convince myself I’m okay.
I smile, I breathe, I even laugh a little.
I start to believe I’m finally finding my way through it.
Then, out of nowhere, it crashes right back into me.
The memories, the guilt, the anger, the longing. It’s like grief waits in the corners of my mind, patient and cruel, reminding me that my world will never be what it was before he left.
Denial was the first thing that found me.
It wrapped itself around me like armour, convincing me this couldn’t be real.
Even though I saw him lying there lifeless, some part of me still believed he was going to come home. I kept waiting for a phone call, for a knock on the door, for anything to prove it wasn’t true.
I remember the moment the doctor came into the room.
The literal ache of my soul leaving my body.
Everything went so still.
I just sat there, repeating to myself, “This isn’t real, this isn’t real.”
It was all I could say.
The words I wanted to speak wouldn’t come out.
I was stuck.
Frozen in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.
There’s no way to explain that feeling.
You don’t understand it until it happens to you, and when it does, it changes you forever.
It’s the kind of pain that doesn’t just break your heart; it takes part of it with it.
The biggest piece of mine died that day.
I replayed it all in my head over and over.
The call, the drive, the silence that followed.
None of it made sense. I told myself they must have made a mistake.
That somehow, he’d wake up.
That somehow this was just a bad dream I’d open my eyes from.
I would catch myself glancing at the driveway, half expecting to see his truck pull in.
I’d scroll through my phone thinking maybe he’d text.
I’d whisper his name just to hear how it sounded, like if I said it enough, he’d answer me.
My mind refused to believe what my heart already knew
that he was gone.
Denial was the only thing that kept me breathing at first.
It was the lie that softened the truth, the fog that made it just barely survivable.
Because if I had truly accepted it in that moment, I don’t think I would’ve made it through the day.
Then came anger.
The kind that doesn’t whisper, it screams.
The kind that makes your chest burn and your hands shake because there’s nowhere to put it.
Except in that moment, I found a place.
Before I knew it, I was running outside of the hospital with my hands attacking the brick podiums.
I was angry at him.
So angry that he left.
That he gave up.
That he didn’t let me help him.
That he made me live in this kind of pain while he found his way out of his.
Then I got angry at myself for being angry at him.
For feeling bitterness toward the one person I’d give anything to have back.
For knowing how much he was hurting and still resenting him for leaving me with this weight.
That’s the kind of guilt that eats you alive.
And when I couldn’t stand the silence inside my own head, I got angry at everything else.
At the sky for still being blue.
At God for letting it happen.
At strangers for enjoying life.
At social media for seeming so happy.
At people who proved to be exactly what the rumors said they were.
Cruel, careless, and heartless when it mattered most.
Anger is the one I can’t shake.
It’s the one that keeps coming back, clawing its way through me no matter how hard I try to let it go.
It’s heavy, and loud, and relentless.
Some days it feels like the only part of me that’s still alive.
Bargaining crept in quietly, in the middle of sleepless nights.
It sounded like “what if.”
What if I had called him that day?
What if I had seen the signs?
What if I had just said one more thing, done one more thing?
I begged the universe for a redo, even knowing that would never come.
I begged God to take me instead.
To let him come back, to trade my heartbeat for his.
I would have given every single breath I have left if it meant he could have one more.
I cried until my body went numb, until there were no more words, just that one wish looping in my head: take me instead.
Please.
Take me.
Bargaining was the cruellest hope.
The kind that breaks you over and over again, because no matter how much you plead, the answer never changes.
No matter what I do.
It won't bring him back.
Then came depression, but not the kind you see on TV.
Not the quiet scenes of someone staring out a window with sad beautiful songs playing in the background.
This kind was cruel.
It drove wedges between me and the people who love me.
It made me push away my friends, my family, anyone who tried to reach for me.
It took my emotions and spun them out of control.
I could be laughing one minute and breaking apart the next.
There have been endless trial runs.
All the different medicines, all the different therapies.
Each one promising to help.
To balance.
To heal.
But how do you fix something that will never really be fixed?
How do you medicate a heart that’s grieving?
Simple.
You don't.
Depression isn’t even a stage anymore.
It’s a part of me now.
The functioning kind though.
The kind where I can get up, get dressed, go to work, make people laugh, and no one would ever know that inside, I’m crumbling.
The kind where I sit in a room full of people and still feel completely alone.
Where I can be surrounded by love and somehow still feel empty.
It’s the constant lump in my throat that never goes away, the ache behind every laugh, the weight behind every deep breath.
It’s exhaustion that no amount of sleep can touch.
I’ve gotten good at hiding it, at pretending I’m okay, at smiling through the fire burning in my chest.
Depression has become the shadow that follows me everywhere I go.
Quiet, heavy, and always there.
It’s not something I move through anymore.
It’s something I live with.
And then there’s acceptance.
Acceptance is not a feeling of peace.
It is a profound and heavy understanding.
It is the steady, unyielding knowledge that the hole in my life is permanent.
That I will never hear his laugh again or hear him call me 'baby girl.'
He won't see my kids grow up.
He won't tell RayAnn he loves her 5X, or Mia how proud he is of her.
He won't tell Tre that he looks exactly like him, with a big cheeky smile.
The person I was on April 18th is gone, and the one left behind is forever defined by his absence.
Acceptance is the one everyone talks about, like it’s some kind of closure.
Well, it’s not.
It’s just understanding.
It’s waking up and knowing this is your life now.
Acceptance doesn’t mean it stops hurting.
It just means I’ve stopped pretending it didn’t happen.
It means I've stopped telling myself he's at work and he will be home soon.
Instead, I tell myself the truth,
He's gone.
He's never,
ever,
ever,
coming back.
But guess what?
The stages don't stop when you hit the last one.
They start over, sometimes in different orders.
I came into this believing grief was a storm you simply had to weather,
Expecting to eventually find myself standing on the clean, dry ground of "closure."
But I know now that there is no clean, dry ground.
I have fought through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.
Grief is not a chapter you close, but a library you learn to live within.
Yet, this constant ache is also the living proof of our connection.
This endless middle ground, where the pain cycles and the memories still crash, is simply the measure of how deeply I loved him.
I am still learning, still hurting, but I am no longer trying to outrun the pain.
I am learning how to carry it, because in carrying this weight, I am carrying the memory of him.
And that is a love that will never have a finish line.
