The Q life Grief Journey

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.