LIFE
Living A Life Unexpected
Grief disrupts the status quo
People say time heals, but that is not quite right. Time doesn’t heal — it teaches. It taught me how to carry you differently. It taught me how joy can exist alongside grief, like light and shadow, in the same room. I let grief walk beside me instead of holding it on the inside.
Slowly, carefully, I begin to rebuild. I am learning to laugh again, not the hollow sound of the early days, to make plans, and to look forward. This week, I went skiing with Lucy, the first time without you.
I met people at school whose stories you would have treasured. Each experience was both bitter and sweet — the ache of not sharing it with you, alongside the quiet knowledge that loving you had taught me how to see the world in your one-of-a-kind way.
Some nights, I still talk to you. About the day, future, and ways the world has changed. About how I’ve changed. I’ve had the missing scalloped slate shingle on the mansard roof replaced while half the neighborhood watched. I’ve fielded questions about how could I possibly live in that big old house all alone, especially since I am a young woman. “Watch me,” I said.
Living fully after you died wasn’t a betrayal, as I’d once feared. It was the deepest kind of honoring. Every new experience, every connection made is touched by your influence, colored by having known you.
They say grief is the price we pay for love. But they rarely mention the other truth — that having loved deeply teaches us how to live deeply, even after loss. Perhaps especially after loss. It’s about understanding that our capacity for joy can thrive, and every new experience adds to the story.
