The sun will still rise.

If tomorrow starts without me, I hope its starts with you. I hope it continues with you. Love unapologetically and don’t be afraid to show it in all the ways you know how.

---

Grief is a…confusing thing.

I don’t know how else I can phrase it. Grief is not the people who line up at her doorstep to offer their condolences, it is not the flowers that litter mounds that all face the same direction, nor is it in the quiet that lingers after all the pots, pans and plates have been locked away.

Grief comes after. Days, weeks, months after.

It is the silent realization of loss. The weight that soaks into her skin and sinks into her bones. Those ‘you should have been here’, ‘you would have loved this’ and ‘why is the silence deafening’ moments that bring the weight of death back to life. Speaking over their grave does not bring them back, sobs housed into her pillow leave nothing but wet trails and emptiness.

She wakes up one day and she grieves.

Her heart has been leaking for so long. Leaking into her motivation that becomes indifference, into the relationships she cherished which now feel forced, into her dreams, her hopes, her passions, and all the lives she has been robbed of living.

Her bleeding heart has tainted so much. It has been quietly breaking, quietly sobbing…quietly coming apart.

And all that was love, now called grief, had choked up all that was her being…and she was left feeling numb. The weight of the world pressed down on her chest. It wasn’t the first time grief had found her, but this time, it felt different. This time, it wasn’t just sadness or pain—it was an all-encompassing emptiness.

She felt it: in the hollowness of her bones, in the silence of her screams, in the insanity of her empty mind, and in the gnawing pain of being alive.

It was the quiet moments when she reached for the phone, only to remember there was no one on the other side. It was the way the air seemed to catch in her throat when she heard a song, or a voice, that brought the past rushing back in harrowing waves. And most, it was in the unbearable silence that followed.

But what no one told her was that grief isn’t something that goes away.

It isn’t a wound that heals over time, leaving only a faint scar behind. No, grief lingers. It lives with you, quietly but persistently, reshaping the contours of your heart. You don’t “get over” it the way you might recover from a cold or a broken bone. It becomes part of you, a shadow that follows, sometimes so faint you almost forget it’s there, and other times so overwhelming it feels like you can’t take a single breath without it reminding you of its presence.

What no one told her was that grief sneaks up on you. It doesn’t just exist in the big moments, the anniversaries or the birthdays. It’s in the little things; the music, the smells, the food, the jokes.

It would color how she saw the world, turning ordinary moments into painful reminders of what once was. People would tell her she was strong, that she was handling it well, but inside, she would feel hollow, like she was only going through the motions.

Her broken heart painfully buried in a graveyard full of forgotten souls and broken hopes.

Grief is not something you conquer. It’s not a battle that can be won. It doesn’t get smaller; you simply grow around it. Over time, you learn to make space for it, to let it coexist with whatever joy and love and laughter you’re still able to find. There are days when it feels manageable, like it’s finally settled in a quiet corner of your heart. And then there are days when it erupts, raw and fresh, as if no time has passed at all. Those are the days that break you, that remind you just how deep the ache runs.

What no one told her was that grief would become a lifelong companion. It would sit with her at the dinner table, walk beside her on quiet afternoons, and visit her in her dreams. It would be so tightly entwined with her being that she couldn’t imagine herself without it. To grieve is to have loved deeply, fiercely, with the kind of love that changes you forever.

And in the quietest moments, she would whisper their name, as if somehow, by saying it, they might return.

But they never did.

To love deeply is to grieve deeply.

That love, however fleeting, was the brightest light she had ever known.

Even in her grief, she knew that some things, no matter how painful, are too precious to ever regret.

29th November, 2024: I remembered you today after what feels like forever. If love could have saved you, my baby, you would have lived forever. ~M