Some mornings arrive differently — heavy, familiar, or impossibly quiet. Grief has a way of circling back, reminding me of all that’s been lost and all that somehow still remains. Today was one of those mornings.
This morning I woke with a heaviness in my chest and a sad heart. I remembered the last time we danced in the kitchen. It wasn’t that long ago. I can still hear the song, see his eyes soften for a moment, and everything else just fell away. For a second, we were just two people moving together — no pain, no chaos, no words needed. Just connection.
Now, I sit here with his phone in my hands, the same way I used to hold Eric’s. It’s strange how grief repeats itself, how the rituals have resurfaced—the checking, the scrolling, the need to still tend to something of them. Messages and notifications come through like echoes from another life. Each one is a reminder that time is passing, that the world still moves, even when mine feels as though it has stopped.
Eventually, the service will end. The number that once lit up the screen will just… disappear. The notifications, the emails, all of it — sent into a void, meant for someone who isn’t here anymore. Then, I’ll just turn it off. It hurts in a way that’s hard to put words to. It feels like another goodbye, another layer of letting go.
It’s bitter and sweet, this space I’m in. I still live in the echo — the ghost of a life that once felt so full. And yet, life keeps happening around me. People laugh, cars go by, the sun rises. Their absence is still my reality, but so is my presence. And I don’t know what to do with that most days.
But maybe that’s the work right now — to just keep existing in the space between. To carry their memory without being swallowed by it. To remember that even in all this loss, I’m still here. Breathing, feeling, remembering, existing.
Their absence. My presence. Both are true. Both still matter.
Grief doesn’t fade on a schedule. It loops, it resurfaces, and it softens only when it’s ready. But in that looping, there’s a quiet kind of survival — the proof that we keep waking up, even when it hurts.
Today’s Mantra for Presence Through Loss
What is gone shapes what remains.
What remains is love.
What remains is breath.
What remains is me.
I am still here.
