There are these tiny moments — little flickers — where I forget that you’re really gone. Gone gone.
And in those brief moments, I feel almost whole again, like the world hasn’t shattered and left me standing in the ruins…again.
I know you didn’t mean to knock the wind out of me a second time, but you did.
You didn’t mean to leave me with all of this.
I’m sitting here in the hole that was you —
now responsible for everything you left, and everything I already had:
Odin, Freija, this apartment, this life that keeps moving forward without your love, without your presence, without your support.
The train still goes by as if nothing has changed.
But everything has.
We’ve gone from four souls to three in this “home” we created, and all of us are trying to adjust in our own ways. Odin curls into me because he feels the shift. Freija pretends the world is steady. And I… I’m just trying to survive inside a reality I never wanted.
Just know that we loved you. We still love you and we still look for you.
And we will keep loving you long after you’re gone.
We’ll miss the laughter, the dancing, the playfulnest, the lazy days spent with all of us snuggled on the bed, the little adventures, the quiet, meaningful mornings, the feeling of belonging to someone who felt like home.
We’ll miss it all for the rest of our days.
Reflection
Grief keeps teaching me that love doesn’t end just because a life does. The pain I feel isn’t proof that something is wrong with me — it’s proof that something mattered. That he mattered. That the life we built, the routines we shared, the future we dreamed of, all had weight and meaning.
In these moments of writing, I’m learning to let myself speak without polishing, without shrinking the truth. I’m learning that mourning isn’t linear, dignified, or clean. It’s jagged and contradictory. It’s loving someone and resenting them in the same breath. Missing the moments that made life feel soft, while trying to survive the ones that broke me open.
I’m beginning to see that healing isn’t about replacing what I’ve lost — it’s about creating space inside myself to carry it. A quieter space, maybe. A gentler one. A space where anger and love can coexist, where memory doesn’t have to be tidy to be sacred.
And even in the ache, even in the absence, there is still some part of me whispering: I’m still here.
I have so much anger and rage. I hate you for making me go through this again. All you had to do was come home or call me to pick you up. That was it. What was so bad that you had to leave me like this?
I love you, and now I hate you. The trauma bond is the worst part because not only am I grieving you being gone — because you were my morning, my afternoon, and my sunset — but I’m grieving the emotional tether we shared when things were bad. Even then, we still had each other. Now I have nothing.
I was so good without you in the aftermath of the first loss. You helped me believe again, and then you accused me of making you dependent on me. But we were dependent on each other — we knew that, we acknowledged it, and we accepted it. And then you left me.
I learned so much about him because of you. You showed me around your hometown and filled in the pieces of his story — the childhood memories, the places, the things he couldn’t tell me himself. Through you, I felt closer to him. You were my comfort in the painful absence of what was my former life. You filled in the gaps I couldn’t fill on my own — the ones I didn’t even know I still needed. And now, all of that is gone too. There is no more. I grieve it all, every bit of it. All at once, it’s all-consuming.
Reflection:
Love can be both the wound and the salve — and in that contradiction, I am learning to breathe again. Some pieces of love remain, even when the person doesn’t.
Layered grief is what happens when one loss sits on top of another—when old wounds are reopened by new pain, and the lines between them blur. It’s not just mourning one person. It’s mourning the parts of yourself that each loss took away.
Until this past week, I wasn’t familiar with the term. While some of the emotions and thoughts feel familiar, others are entirely new. Through therapy, I’ve come to understand what “layered grief” means, and now I can see it written all over my days. I knew pieces of Eric would resurface, but I wasn’t prepared for how deeply it would shake me.
Since Greg left, I’ve found myself struggling to look at photos of Eric. I almost can’t. It’s not because I don’t want to, or because the love or memories have faded. I believe my mind and body can only process one unbearable absence at a time. This new trauma has reactivated all the old pain, but it has also numbed parts of it. My system is overloaded. It feels like my grief has stacked itself in layers I can’t separate—one beneath the other, one heartbreak pressing into the next.
With Greg, the shock is still raw, still in motion. My body hasn’t yet caught up to the truth. But Eric’s loss was already scarred over—tender, but survivable—until now. Looking at him brings back the entire first collapse, and my heart can’t hold both at once. So, for now, I don’t look. Not because I’ve forgotten, but because I remember too much.
Reflection: Layered grief isn’t just revisiting the past—it’s reliving it, all at once. The pain compounds, the memories intertwine, and healing becomes less about progress and more about endurance.
Mantra: I am carrying more than one loss, and it’s okay if I can only hold one at a time.
Our souls connected in a time and place when I was lost. I didn’t know what I wanted or where I was headed. I only knew that I couldn’t continue on the path I was on. Then Greg came into my life and showed me something different—something that felt stable, something that felt like home. Feelings I thought were lost and I would never be able to recapture.
Our time together was often tumultuous. There were times that were unbearable for both of us. But one truth was clear, we always sought comfort in one another. In the quiet discussions of the morning coffees, eating together, or just sitting, I now look back and I think he brought me through a liminal space—an in-between world. One I was stuck in but wasn’t meant to stay in forever. A space I had to pass through. Maybe he wasn’t meant to stay either.
There was such duality in him. The person I saw was so full of hope and life, yet he was also self-loathing and chaotic. He was joy and pain all at once. When things were still and quiet, I could see the gentleness in his heart. I think I fell in love with that version of him—the one who dreamed, who believed we could rebuild something beautiful out of all our brokenness.
Through him, I learned how to live again. All that I had learned before—especially through losing Eric—didn’t prepare me for saying goodbye to Greg in the way I had to. But even in the tragedy, there were gifts. He reminded me how to smile again. How to feel wanted. How to dance in the living room and not care who was watching. He showed me that life doesn’t always need to be so serious, and that sometimes, if we just let go, we can still find small miracles waiting for us in unexpected places.
I meant it when I told him he brought me back to life. He did. And while I wish, down to my broken core, that it hadn’t ended this way, I’m still here. I’m learning that the love, the laughter, and even the chaos all became part of my story. They live in me now, just like the parts of Eric that never left.
Maybe Greg’s purpose was to help me bridge the gap between who I was after losing Eric and who I’m still becoming. Maybe he and I met to help each other remember that love, no matter how fragile or fleeting, can still change us in the deepest of ways.
*Note: I’ve always been a huge proponent of affirmations. I now use them daily to ground, remind myself I’m still here, and to just get me through the pain.
Closing Reflection & Affirmation
I honor the love that was, the lessons that came, and the parts of myself I found through it all. Both Eric and Greg touched my life in ways that shaped who I am today — and even though their absence feels unbearable at times, the love remains. It lives in my heart, in the way I care for others, in the way I keep choosing to breathe, to move, to feel.
I am still here. I am still learning. And even in this space of grief, I am growing roots again.
Today, I will let myself rest in the truth that I have survived love and loss before, and I will again. I carry their memory with gratitude, not a weight, but as a quiet light guiding me toward peace.
While visiting the picturesque island of Sanibel, I wandered into a small toy store. What started as a casual shopping trip became a profound and unforgettable encounter. Behind the register stood a small woman whose warmth and empathy touched me deeply. As we spoke, I shared my story of trauma and loss, tears streaming down my face. Her response was unexpected yet powerful. She didn’t promise that things would get better, just different.
Her words have echoed in my mind since, prompting me to reflect on my healing process. Can things ever truly get better after trauma and loss, or do they simply become different? This question has shaped my understanding of life since June 2020 as I navigate the twists and turns of an undeniably altered reality.
The Encounter in the Toy Store
It was in September 2020 that I decided I needed to get away. I wanted to go someplace I was familiar and comfortable with. Sanibel Island, Florida, kept coming to my mind. It had been at least 15 years since I had set foot on the island. My memories of it were very fond. With the help and encouragement of my family, I planned a semi-solo trip. I booked two weeks in a small condo on the beach. To stay on the beach in Sanibel for more than a quick visit was on my bucket list, so I had no problem saying yes to myself.
One day, I was out riding my bike and decided to stop at a strip on the main road. I remembered a great little boutique, and it was still there. After shopping, I wandered further in and found a small toy store. I needed to get something for the grandbaby. A small woman was sitting behind the cash register in the corner. She greeted me when I walked in and asked where I was from. Still in an ever-so-fragile state, I started crying and telling her my whole story.
To my surprise, she, too, had been through something quite similar. She recounted another lifetime when she was young, married, and had two adolescent children. A boy and a girl. Her story is not mine to share, but I could see the pain in her eyes. The same pain I felt. It was still there within her, and I could tell she had it buried very deep. She touched my shoulder and said the haunting words I will never forget; “You are still in it. You can’t see past this yet. Things will eventually look different.” And then she stood there and cried with me until the shop phone rang. In that instant, the connection was broken, and I said “goodbye” and left.
Reflecting on “Different” not “Better”
What has stayed with me is her use of the word “different” instead of many others she could have chosen. She could have said “better,” but she didn’t. The pain in her eyes told me she meant to say “different” and nothing else. So I left that day hoping that I might feel different but never whole, never fully healed, and never the same as before…just different.
She also added that things got so bad that she sold everything she owned and moved across the state, where she started a completely new life. How ironic that that might have been the seed planted in my head.
The Nature of Change
Since June 2020, I have driven to the West Coast and back twice by myself. I’ve spent months in Florida, Oregon, California, and Colorado, just to name a few of the most beautiful states I’ve ever seen. When I was caught up in life and tied to a job and family, I had always dreamed of a day just to go. Now was that day, and I took full advantage. Did it heal me? No, but it gave a sense of peace to my heart, knowing my life could be anything I choose to make it from today forward. I remind myself of that frequently.
As of today, his death anniversary has come and gone four times now. I’ve celebrated his birthday five times without him. We’ve had four imaginary anniversaries. We celebrated a new grandbaby who will soon be turning four as well. There are so many milestones, and yet sometimes it seems like yesterday. Just the other day my cousin and I talked about our lives five years ago, and we both agreed that it was another lifetime ago. So many changes in just a short time. Not all changes were for the better, and some were definitely hard. But without them, we wouldn’t all be where we are today.
Is change healing? I don’t have an answer to that. What I have discovered though, is that I am in control of most of the change that happens in my life. We all are; we don’t see it sometimes. We get lost in the chaos of daily life.
I used just to let life go by. Not anymore. Everyone used to say, “Get used to the new normal.” There is nothing normal in the aftermath of losing a loved one. Incidentally, here’s a tip; don’t say that to someone who is grieving.
REFLECTIONS
So, in reflection on “Are things better or just different?” I have to say both. If you’ve read anything I’ve written before, you know I don’t fully subscribe to the stages of grief. Personally, I feel like they are just a made-up roadmap to help us all prepare for unexpected emotions surrounding grief, but I won’t get into that here. Grief has so many layers, as does trauma.
But at the end of the day, things are different now than they were. Some good, some bad, but mostly just “different.” My family has gotten older, I’ve moved several times, accomplished some things I’ve always wanted to do, and seen places I always dreamed of. Some as a direct result of loss, but some not, and each day I wake up, I still have the ritual of looking outside and seeing possibility. When I go to bed at night, I meditate on what I am thankful I still have in my life.
