The Q life Grief Journey

Walking with love after loss.

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  • A Fishing Vest on the Passenger Seat

    Sometimes grief doesn’t announce itself with tears.

    Sometimes it hangs quietly on the back of a truck seat.

    A few days ago, James found Quinten’s fishing vest.

    Without saying much, he draped it over the passenger seat in his truck.

    That’s where it rides now.

    Not because he forgot to put it away.

    Because he remembers.

    That fishing vest isn’t just another piece of clothing.

    It’s a reminder of countless mornings the two of them spent together.

    Early in the morning, they’d load the truck with fishing poles and tackle boxes, then head to their favorite bait shop for minnows, worms, and beef jerky before driving to the lake.

    Those mornings weren’t really about catching fish.

    They were about being together. Just the two of them.

    Talking about life.

    Enjoying the quiet.

    Laughing when the fish weren’t biting.

    Celebrating when they were.

    Some of my favorite memories are the pictures Quinten would send me from the water.

    A smiling selfie.

    A fish proudly held up for the camera.

    A simple text that let me know they were having another good day together.

    At the time, they felt like any ordinary day.

    Now I know they were anything but ordinary.

    When I saw Quinten’s fishing vest hanging in the truck, my heart understood something before my mind could put it into words.

    James isn’t trying to move on from those mornings.

    He’s carrying them with him.

    Every time he opens the truck door, he sees more than a fishing vest.

    He sees Quinten.

    He remembers early mornings and quiet conversations.

    He remembers a young man who loved being on the water, loved spending time with him, and found joy in the simple things.

    People often ask what grief looks like after losing someone you love.

    Sometimes it looks like tears.

    Sometimes it looks like silence.

    And sometimes…

    It looks like a fishing vest hanging on the passenger seat.

    There is something comforting about keeping certain things close.

    Not because we are living in the past.

    But because love leaves fingerprints on ordinary objects.

    A jacket.

    A coffee mug.

    A favorite chair.

    A fishing vest.

    These things become more than possessions.

    They become reminders of a life that mattered.

    A relationship that continues.

    A love that has not ended.

    Watching James quietly place that vest in his truck reminded me that men grieve differently than women.

    I often write.

    I tell stories.

    I speak Quinten’s name every chance I get.

    James carries his memories more quietly.

    Neither way is more right.

    Neither way loves more deeply.

    They’re simply different expressions of the same love.

    The same loss.

    The same longing.

    I don’t know how long that fishing vest will stay on the back of the passenger seat.

    Maybe weeks.

    Maybe months.

    Maybe years.

    And honestly, it doesn’t matter.

    Because every time James climbs into that truck, a small part of Quinten rides with him.

    Not in the vest itself.

    But in the memories it carries.

    Love has a remarkable way of attaching itself to ordinary things.

    And sometimes those ordinary things become extraordinary reminders that the people we love never truly leave us.

    They remain in our stories.

    They remain in our hearts.

    And sometimes…

    They remain on the back of a passenger seat, ready for one more fishing trip.

  • One Year Without You

    One year.

    Somehow, an entire year has passed since I held Quinten’s hand for the last time.

    A year since I whispered, “Go with God.”

    A year since I heard the words I miss most:

    “I love you, Momma.”

    People often say that time heals.

    I have learned that time doesn’t heal the loss of a child.

    It teaches you how to carry it.

    Over the past year, I have lived through emotions I never knew could exist together.

    There has been disbelief.

    How could my son really be gone?

    Even now, there are moments when my mind forgets for just a second. I hear a funny story or see something that would have made Quinten laugh, and my first thought is that I can’t wait to tell him.

    Then reality gently, and sometimes painfully, reminds me.

    There has been anger.

    Not the kind that lashes out at others.

    The quiet kind.

    The kind that asks why cancer had to steal the life of a man who loved so deeply, laughed so freely, and found joy in the simplest things.

    The kind that grieves the birthdays, holidays, fishing trips, and ordinary Saturdays that will never happen again.

    There has been overwhelming sadness.

    The kind that settles into places words cannot fully describe.

    The sadness of missing one more hug.

    One more conversation.

    One more Saturday afternoon.

    One more chance to hear him say,

    “I love you, Momma.”

    That longing has not disappeared.

    I don’t believe it ever will.

    Because love doesn’t end when life does.

    If anything, love becomes even more visible in the ache that remains.

    But this year has also surprised me.

    Not because the grief became smaller.

    It hasn’t.

    But because healing quietly began to appear in places I wasn’t expecting.

    Our family has grown closer.

    Losing Quinten reminded us how precious each other truly are.

    We have leaned on one another.

    Held one another.

    Laughed together.

    Cried together.

    And somehow, together, we’ve found the strength to keep taking the next step.

    I have found healing in hugs.

    Simple hugs.

    The kind that don’t fix anything but somehow remind me I’m not carrying this alone.

    And I have found joy in the eyes of my grandsons, Lincoln and Everett.

    Their laughter doesn’t replace what was lost.

    Nothing ever could.

    But it reminds me that love continues.

    Life continues.

    Hope continues.

    I see pieces of our family’s future reflected in them, and for that, I am deeply grateful.

    People sometimes talk about “getting back to normal.”

    I’ve learned there is no returning to normal after losing a child.

    No matter how old they are.

    My normal included Quinten.

    He was woven into my everyday life.

    My Saturdays.

    My phone calls.

    My conversations.

    My celebrations.

    My heart.

    When he died, that version of normal died too.

    So this past year has not been about finding my old life again.

    It has been about searching for a new normal.

    One where I carry both unimaginable loss and enduring love.

    One where grief walks beside gratitude.

    One where tears and laughter can exist in the same day.

    One where I continue to honor my son by speaking his name, telling his stories, and living a life that reflects the love he gave so freely.

    I know I will grieve Quinten for the rest of my life.

    Not because I am unable to move forward.

    But because I will always be his mother.

    That part of me did not end when his life did.

    It never will.

    If anything, this first year has taught me that grief is not something to overcome.

    It is love that has nowhere to go.

    So I will keep loving him.

    I will keep missing him.

    I will keep telling his stories.

    I will keep saying his name.

    Because Quinten mattered.

    He still matters.

    And he always will.

    One year has passed.

    Not a day has gone by that I haven’t loved him.

    Not a day has gone by that I haven’t missed him.

    And not a day will ever come when that changes.

    Until we meet again, my sweet boy…

    I love you, too.

  • The Day Everything Changed

    Today marks three years since James and I drove to get Quinten and take him to the emergency room.

    At the time, we thought we were dealing with a temporary emergency.

    Something that would be diagnosed, treated, and eventually become just another story we would tell.

    We had no idea that morning would divide our lives into before and after.

    What followed was nearly two months of tests, scans, procedures, waiting, and unanswered questions.

    Every appointment seemed to bring another possibility, another theory, another reason to hope.

    Until finally, we had an answer.

    Quinten had testicular cancer.

    Not the type most people hear about.

    He was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive yolk sac tumor, a form of testicular cancer that is especially uncommon in adults.

    In an instant, everything changed.

    We were immediately referred to the OU Stephenson Cancer Center, where an incredible team began fighting alongside Quinten.

    The doctors were honest.

    Without treatment, he may have had only a few weeks to live.

    Instead, treatment gave us something I will forever be grateful for.

    Two years.

    And two weeks.

    Looking back now, those two years feel both impossibly short and incredibly full.

    Cancer became part of our everyday life.

    Appointments.

    Scans.

    Medications.

    Surgeries.

    Lab work.

    Waiting rooms.

    Conversations no family ever hopes to have.

    But somehow, cancer never became who Quinten was.

    He refused to let it.

    He lived.

    He laughed.

    He planned fishing trips.

    He bought flowers for his porch.

    He wore a dinosaur costume to Walmart simply because it made people smile.

    He celebrated birthdays.

    He loved his family with everything he had.

    Most remarkably, he never complained.

    Not once did I hear him ask,

    “Why me?”

    He accepted each challenge with a quiet courage that still amazes me.

    Of course, there were difficult days.

    Days of disappointment.

    Days when treatment was hard.

    Days when hope felt fragile.

    But even then, Quinten chose gratitude more often than bitterness.

    He chose to live the life he still had instead of mourning the life cancer threatened to take away.

    As his mother, those two years were the most heartbreaking years of my life.

    They were also among the most beautiful.

    Because when you know time may be limited, ordinary moments become extraordinary.

    Saturday family dinners became sacred.

    Simple conversations became treasured memories.

    Fishing trips became gifts.

    Every laugh carried a little more meaning.

    Every hug lasted a little longer.

    Cancer taught us something none of us wanted to learn.

    Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

    But it also taught us something I hope I never forget.

    Life isn’t measured only by how long we live.

    It’s measured by how deeply we love.

    By how fully we embrace the people around us.

    By how much joy we choose, even when life is unimaginably hard.

    Three years ago today, I believed we were simply going to the hospital.

    Instead, we began the hardest journey our family has ever walked.

    If someone had told me then what the next two years would hold, I don’t know how I would have found the strength to take that first step.

    But God, in His mercy, only gave us one day at a time.

    And together, we lived those days.

    Today, I miss Quinten more than words can express.

    I wish cancer had never entered our lives.

    I wish our story had ended differently.

    I wish he were still here.

    But alongside those wishes is something else.

    Gratitude.

    Profound gratitude.

    Because we were given two years we almost didn’t have.

    Two years filled with memories that cancer could never take away.

    Two years of witnessing extraordinary courage.

    Two years of loving my son a little more intentionally because we understood how precious each day had become.

    Cancer eventually took Quinten’s life.

    But it never took his spirit.

    It never took his kindness.

    It never took his joy.

    And it never took the love our family shared.

    For that, I will be forever thankful.

    Those two years were heartbreaking.

    They were beautiful.

    And I would choose every one of them again.

  • I’m Afraid of Becoming Janie

    I recently saw this cartoon that stopped me in my tracks.

    “Oh no. Here comes Janie. She’s the one who’s always talking about her dead son.”

    The cartoon was meant to make people think.

    It certainly made me think.

    Because if I’m being honest, sometimes I’m afraid I am Janie.

    I talk about Quinten a lot.

    I write about him.

    I share stories about him.

    I mention his name in conversations.

    I tell people about his dinosaur costume trips to Walmart, his love of fishing, his cherry Dr. Peppers from Sonic, his camping trips, and the way he could make an ordinary day feel special.

    And sometimes I wonder:

    Do people get tired of hearing about him?

    Do they see my name appear and think,
    “Here she goes again.”

    Do they quietly wish I would move on to something else?

    It’s a painful question.

    Not because anyone has ever said those words to me.

    But because grief has a way of making you self-conscious about your love.

    When someone dies, especially a child, the world slowly stops talking about them.

    People move on.

    Life continues.

    New topics replace old ones.

    But for a parent, that isn’t what happens.

    Quinten isn’t a memory I occasionally visit.

    He’s my son.

    He will always be my son.

    The relationship didn’t end when he died.

    It changed.

    The truth is, I don’t talk about Quinten because I can’t accept his death.

    I talk about him because I love him.

    I talk about him because he mattered.

    I talk about him because he still matters.

    If he were alive, no one would think twice about me mentioning him.

    Parents talk about their children all the time.

    We share stories.

    We celebrate accomplishments.

    We laugh about funny moments.

    We tell people who they are.

    Death changes many things.

    But it shouldn’t require silence.

    One of the hardest realities of grief is realizing that the people who knew and loved your child are grieving too, but many others have quietly returned to their normal lives.

    And while that’s understandable, it can leave grieving parents feeling like they are carrying the responsibility of keeping their child’s memory alive.

    Sometimes that responsibility feels heavy.

    Sometimes it feels lonely.

    And sometimes it makes me wonder whether I’m becoming “Janie.”

    But then I think about something else.

    What if Janie isn’t the problem?

    What if the problem is that our culture is uncomfortable with grief?

    What if we’ve become so accustomed to treating loss as something private and temporary that we struggle when someone’s love continues to be visible?

    What if Janie simply misses her son?

    What if telling his stories is how she carries him forward?

    What if speaking his name is an act of love?

    Because that’s what it feels like to me.

    Every time I tell a story about Quinten, I get to spend a few more moments with him.

    For a brief time, he’s present again.

    Someone laughs at one of his adventures.

    Someone learns about his kindness.

    Someone sees the man he was beyond his cancer.

    And that matters.

    It matters more than I can explain.

    So yes, sometimes I worry that I’m Janie.

    I worry about taking up too much space.

    I worry about making people uncomfortable.

    I worry that others are tired of hearing about my son.

    But I have come to this conclusion:

    I would rather risk being Janie than stop talking about Quinten.

    Because silence feels far more frightening than repetition.

    Silence feels like disappearance.

    And Quinten deserves better than that.

    He lived boldly.

    He loved deeply.

    He brought joy wherever he went.

    His life mattered.

    His story matters.

    And as long as I have breath in my lungs, I will keep telling it.

    Not because I am stuck.

    Not because I refuse to move forward.

    But because love still has something to say.

    And I hope it always will.

  • Working While Grieving

    One of the strangest things about grief is that the world expects you to keep going.

    The bills still arrive.

    The emails still come.

    The meetings still happen.

    The deadlines don’t move.

    And somehow, after losing someone you love, you’re expected to return to work as though your heart hasn’t been shattered.

    I remember how impossible that felt.

    After Quinten died, I woke up one morning and realized the world had continued turning without him.

    People were heading to work.

    Businesses were opening.

    Life was moving forward.

    But I wasn’t ready.

    Part of me wanted time to stop.

    Part of me wanted the world to recognize that something monumental had happened.

    My son was gone.

    How could anything else possibly matter?

    Yet work remained.

    And so I did what many grieving people do.

    I showed up.

    Not because I was ready.

    Not because I was healed.

    But because life required it.

    What surprised me most was how grief followed me into every part of my workday.

    I could be answering an email and suddenly think of Quinten.

    I could be sitting in a meeting and find myself remembering a conversation we had.

    A song would play.

    A memory would surface.

    A date on the calendar would trigger a flood of emotions.

    Grief does not stay neatly at home while you go to work.

    It comes with you.

    It sits quietly beside you.

    Sometimes it whispers.

    Sometimes it roars.

    Some days I could focus.

    Other days I was simply trying to make it through the next hour.

    And I learned something important:

    Grief makes ordinary tasks harder because grief itself is work.

    The world sees someone sitting at a desk.

    What it doesn’t see is the emotional labor happening underneath.

    The effort it takes to concentrate.

    The energy required to hold back tears.

    The constant adjustment of carrying loss while trying to function.

    People often ask grieving individuals when they will return to normal.

    The truth is, there is no normal to return to.

    The person who existed before the loss is gone too.

    Grief changes us.

    Not because we want it to.

    Because love changes us.

    And when someone we love dies, we carry that change into every room we enter—including the workplace.

    Over time, I learned that productivity wasn’t the goal.

    Survival was.

    Some days success looked like completing my work.

    Other days success looked like simply showing up.

    Both mattered.

    Both counted.

    If you are grieving while working, I want you to know this:

    You are carrying far more than most people can see.

    Give yourself grace.

    Take breaks when you need them.

    Understand that concentration may come and go.

    And remember that grief is not a sign of weakness.

    It is evidence of love.

    There will be days when work feels impossible.

    There will be days when you surprise yourself.

    There will be moments when you laugh with a coworker and immediately feel guilty.

    There will be moments when your heart breaks in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday.

    All of it is normal.

    All of it is part of learning how to live in a world that has changed forever.

    I still miss Quinten every day.

    Work did not change that.

    Time did not erase that.

    But I have learned that grief and purpose can exist together.

    Sadness and responsibility can coexist.

    Love and loss can travel alongside us wherever we go.

    Even into the workplace.

    And some days, simply showing up is an act of courage.

    On those days, that is enough.

  • The Guilt of Having a Good Day After Loss

    One of the strangest parts of grief is the guilt that can come with having a good day.

    No one really talks about that part.

    People talk about sadness.
    About crying.
    About heartbreak and loneliness.

    But they don’t often talk about the moment you laugh again and immediately feel guilty for it.

    Or the moment you catch yourself enjoying something, a conversation, a sunny afternoon, a family dinner, and suddenly feel like you’ve betrayed the person you lost simply because you experienced joy without them.

    I have felt that guilt.

    After losing Quinten, there were days when I smiled at something my grandchildren did or found myself genuinely enjoying a moment with family. And almost immediately afterward, grief would whisper something painful into my heart:

    How can you still laugh when he is gone?

    That feeling can be incredibly confusing.

    Because the truth is, grief and joy often exist together.

    One does not cancel out the other.

    Loving your life again does not mean you loved your child any less.

    Smiling does not mean you stopped missing them.

    And healing does not mean forgetting.

    But when you lose someone so deeply woven into your everyday life, especially a child, happiness can feel unfamiliar at first. Almost unsafe.

    There is a part of you that feels like staying sad somehow honors them more.

    As if carrying constant pain proves the depth of your love.

    I think many grieving parents silently wrestle with this.

    We wonder if moving forward means leaving them behind.

    We fear that moments of peace somehow diminish the significance of the loss.

    But I’m slowly learning something important.

    Love does not ask us to stop living.

    And the people we love most would never want their memory to become a prison we cannot step outside of.

    Quinten lived boldly and happily, even while facing cancer. He found joy in ordinary moments, fishing trips with James, flowers on his porch, shopping trips in his dinosaur costume, laughing with family, and stopping at Sonic for a cherry Dr. Pepper.

    He truly lived.

    And when I remember that, I realize something:

    Honoring him does not mean refusing joy.

    It means learning to carry his love into the life that still remains.

    Some days, that feels easier than others.

    There are still moments when happiness catches me off guard, and grief rushes in behind it.

    But maybe healing is not about choosing one or the other.

    Maybe it’s about allowing both to exist.

    Grief and gratitude.

    Sorrow and laughter.

    Longing and love.

    Because losing someone you love changes you forever, but it does not erase your ability to experience beauty, connection, or hope.

    In fact, grief often deepens those things.

    It teaches you how precious ordinary moments really are.

    And maybe that’s one of the hardest and most beautiful truths of all:

    A good day after a loss is not a betrayal.

    It is evidence that love is still alive inside you.

    And perhaps, in some quiet way, the people we miss most are still part of those good days too.

    Not physically.

    But through the love they left behind.

    The laughter they gave us.

    The memories they planted inside our hearts.

    I will always grieve Quinten.

    That will never change.

    But I am beginning to understand that allowing myself to smile, to laugh, to live, is not moving away from him.

    It is carrying him forward into the life I still have left to live.

    And I think that is exactly what love would want us to do.

  • Some Days I Miss the Caregiving

    There are days when I miss taking care of Quinten so much that it physically hurts.

    That may sound strange to people who have never walked through caregiving. Most people see the exhaustion first. The appointments. The medications. The schedules. The sleepless nights. The constant worry.

    And yes, all of that was real.

    Caring for someone with cancer is heavy. It asks everything from you emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

    But what people don’t always understand is this:

    Inside that caregiving was love.

    Deep love.

    Purposeful love.

    For nearly two years, taking care of Quinten became part of the rhythm of my life. My days revolved around him, his treatments, his comfort, his needs, his good days, his hard days.

    There was always something to do.

    Medications to organize.
    Meals to prepare.
    Appointments to schedule.
    Laundry to wash.
    Questions to ask.
    Symptoms to watch closely.

    And somehow, inside all of that responsibility, there was closeness.

    There was presence.

    There was the sacred privilege of being needed by your child, even as an adult.

    Some days, I miss that more than I can explain.

    I miss hearing his footsteps in the house.

    I miss asking him if he needed anything before I went to bed.

    I miss making his favorite foods and watching him actually have an appetite on the good days.

    I even miss the routines I once felt tired from.

    Because those routines meant he was still here.

    Caregiving changes you.

    When you spend that much time focused on keeping someone comfortable, safe, and cared for, it becomes more than a responsibility. It becomes part of your identity.

    And when the person you cared for is suddenly gone, the silence left behind is overwhelming.

    The medications no longer need sorting.

    The appointments stop.

    The caregiving routines disappear overnight.

    But your heart doesn’t stop being a caregiver just because the person is gone.

    That love still has nowhere to go.

    I think that’s one of the loneliest parts of grief.

    Not just missing the person, but missing the act of loving them in all the ordinary ways caregiving required.

    People often talk about the relief caregivers feel after a loved one passes, especially after suffering.

    And yes, there was relief that Quinten was no longer in pain.

    No mother wants her child to suffer.

    But relief and grief can exist together.

    And so can gratitude and longing.

    Because if I’m honest, some days I would give anything to make his medications up one more time.

    To hear him call from the other room.

    To help him settle into his chair.

    To sit beside him during another appointment.

    Not because I miss cancer.

    Not because I miss fear.

    But because I miss him.

    I miss the closeness that caregiving created between us.

    There is something sacred about walking beside someone in their hardest moments. Something that changes the way you love forever.

    And while I would never wish that journey on anyone, I will always be grateful that Quinten never had to walk it alone.

    Some days I miss the caregiving because caregiving was one of the purest expressions of my love for him.

    And even now, after loss, that love remains.

    Still searching for somewhere to go.

    Still reaching toward the son I would care for forever if I could.

  • Mother’s Day Without Him

    Mother’s Day is coming.

    And for the first time in my life,
    I will go through it without hearing from one of my children.

    I’ve never had a Mother’s Day without Quinten.

    Not one.

    There was always a call.
    A text.
    A visit.

    And always those words,
    the ones I can still hear so clearly in my mind:

    “I love you, Momma.”

    He was my Momma’s boy.

    Not in a small way.
    In a way that was steady and sure.
    In a way that never made me question how much he loved me.

    And now…

    I’m trying to understand how this day is supposed to exist without him in it.

    People talk about “getting through” holidays after loss.

    But no one really tells you how.

    How do you move through a day that used to hold so much joy
    when now it only highlights what’s missing?

    How do you celebrate being a mother
    when part of your heart is no longer here to celebrate with you?

    I don’t have answers.

    Only questions that sit heavy in my chest.

    My memories of Quinten are not distant.

    They are not faded.

    They are sharp.
    Present.
    Alive in a way that almost feels cruel.

    I can hear his voice.
    I can see his smile.
    I can feel the weight of what’s gone.

    And I keep coming back to the last thing I said to him:

    “Go with God.”

    And he did.

    Peacefully.

    The way every mother hopes their child would go…
    if they ever had to face something so unthinkable.

    But that doesn’t make the absence easier.

    It doesn’t quiet the part of me that would give anything,
    anything,
    to have him back.

    Cancer took my son.

    At 34 years old.

    Thirty-four.

    A number that feels impossible to say out loud,
    because it should never have been the end of his story.

    He had more life to live.
    More days.
    More Mother’s Days.

    We both did.

    This year, Mother’s Day feels different in a way I can’t fully explain.

    It’s not just sadness.

    It’s absence.

    It’s the quiet where his voice should be.
    It’s the space where his presence used to live.
    It’s the knowing that no matter what the day holds…
    it will never be what it once was.

    I don’t know exactly how I will get through it.

    Maybe I won’t “get through” it at all.

    Maybe I’ll just carry it.

    The love.
    The loss.
    The memories that refuse to fade.

    Because even though he is no longer here…
    I am still his mother.

    And he is still my son.

    That doesn’t end.

    Not on Mother’s Day.
    Not ever.

    Quinten,

    I love you.

    I miss you more than words can hold.

    And if I could hear you say it just one more time….
    “I love you, Momma.”
    It would be enough to carry me through anything.

  • After the Silence

    There is a moment no one prepares you for.

    It’s not the moment of death.

    It’s the moment after.

    When everything goes quiet.

    Not just in the room, but in your entire world.

    The waiting is over.

    The knowing is no longer something you carry.

    It has happened.

    And suddenly…there is nothing to brace for anymore.

    For so long, life was structured around what was coming.

    Appointments.
    Treatments.
    Conversations you didn’t want to have but had anyway.

    Even the fear had a rhythm to it.

    But after…there is no rhythm.

    No next step.

    No preparing.

    Just stillness, and the absence of the person who filled so much of your everyday life.

    The in-between is gone.

    And in its place is something else entirely.

    Finality.

    A kind of quiet that feels too big, too permanent, too real.

    You don’t realize how much of your life was built around caring, watching, and hoping until it all stops.

    And you are left holding…nothing.

    No updates to wait for.
    No decisions to make.
    No roles to step into.

    Just space.

    And grief.

    Grief that no longer shares the room with hope in the same way.

    Because hope has changed now.

    It isn’t a hope for more time.

    It isn’t a hope for healing.

    It becomes something softer, harder to define.

    Hope that you will make it through the day.

    Hope that you can carry what feels impossible.

    Hope that somehow, life will continue to move forward,

    even when you’re not sure how to move with it.

    There is a disorientation to this kind of loss.

    You spent so long living in awareness that time was limited.

    And now… time stretches out in front of you again.

    But without them in it.

    And that feels almost impossible to comprehend.

    The world keeps going.

    People keep talking about ordinary things.

    Days continue to pass.

    And you are standing in a reality that feels anything but ordinary.

    This is the part no one sees.

    The quiet after the crisis.

    The life after the goodbye.

    Where the support fades, the messages slow, and you are left to figure out what it means to live in a world where they are no longer here.

    There is no roadmap for this.

    No clear way through.

    Just moments.

    One at a time.

    Some heavy.
    Some lighter than you expect.

    Some that surprise you with a breath of peace you didn’t think was possible.

    And then others that bring the weight rushing back in.

    Grief doesn’t leave.

    It changes.

    It softens in some places, sharpens in others.

    It finds new ways to show up.

    But so does love.

    Love doesn’t end with death.

    It shifts.

    It becomes memory.
    It becomes presence in absence.
    It becomes the quiet thread that still connects you.

    And slowly…you begin to learn something new.

    How to live without them while still carrying them.

    How to move forward without leaving them behind.

    How to exist in a world that no longer holds them physically, but is still filled with everything they were.

    The silence never fully goes away.

    But over time…it becomes something you learn to sit with,
    instead of something that completely overtakes you.

    And in that silence, if you listen closely, you realize something unexpected.

    They are still there.

    Not in the way you want.

    Not in the way you had.

    But in the love, in the memories, in the person you have become because of them.

    The in-between taught you how to hold two things at once.

    After the silence…you learn how to carry both loss and love for the rest of your life.

  • The Dates That Don’t Let Go

    This month is hard.

    Not in a general way. Not in a “grief is always there” kind of way.

    In a specific way.

    Because this month holds the dates that walked Quinten to his grave.

    The last chemo.

    The day they said it. “There’s nothing else we can do. The cancer is not responding.”

    And the day hospice started.

    I can line them up in my head like steps.

    One after another.

    And I hate that I know them so well.

    I hate that my body remembers before the calendar even gets there.

    I can still feel those rooms.

    The weight of them.

    The way everything in me knew what those words meant, even while I was still standing there
    trying to hold it together.

    People say time helps.

    But time doesn’t take these days away.

    It just brings them back around.

    And here they are again.

    And I don’t know how to do this.

    I don’t know how to face these dates and keep moving forward in a life he isn’t in.

    Because he is missing so much.

    Things he should be here for.
    Things I want to tell him.
    Things that don’t feel right happening without him.

    The world keeps moving like none of this matters anymore.

    But it does.

    It still does.

    These aren’t just dates.

    They are the moments everything broke open.

    The moments we started losing him in ways we couldn’t stop.

    And I’m still carrying them.

    I don’t have anything smart to say about it.

    No lesson.

    No closure.

    Just this:

    These days are coming whether I’m ready or not.

    And all I can do is walk through them again.

    Say his name.

    Quinten.

    And feel how much he is still missing.