What Is Grief If Not Love Persevering

I wrote this in the thick of missing someone who shaped everything I am. This one’s for anyone sitting in grief and trying to breathe through it.

Grief has consumed me in ways I was never prepared for. I forgot his voice. I have to use my brain harder just to remember. I have to close my eyes to see him again. I don’t feel him around me anymore. The finality of it all, it hurts so much.

I close my eyes to remember what his kiss on my cheek felt like whiskers and all. The lessons he used to give, the ones I’d roll my eyes at, are now loud echoes in my daily life. The kind of advice that doesn’t make sense until you’re living it.

He was my best friend. My confidant.

I remember the day he left, I couldn’t stop screaming for him. I was on autopilot. I collapsed. As if my screams would call his soul back down into his body, pull him away from God’s arms. I was living my nightmare. He was the one person I knew I couldn’t lose. Soulmates. That’s what we were.

His laugh. His love. His strength. His devotion to family. No one like that should just... disappear.

Then came the wake, the funeral, the pictures. I didn’t realize how much I’d hate seeing them close the casket. I begged them not to. I needed it open. He’s in there and once they close it, I’ll never see him again.

And now Father’s Day comes and it just hurts.
Loving you hurts me.

Grieving you feels like self-harm, because I choose to remember you, knowing it will make me cry. But somehow, it feels good. It’s a relief. It reminds me you were real. You were here.

How can the days go on? How can I go on? It feels wrong. I can’t not have you here. But that’s my reality.

You’re my everything, even in death. I am who I am because of you. I don’t have regrets about what was left unsaid…we both knew. My only regret is not spending every second with you. But I know that’s not realistic.

I know I said grief feels like self-harm.
But I also wear it like a badge of honor.

That line from WandaVision lives in my bones now:
“What is grief, if not love persevering?”
That’s what I tell myself on the low days.

If you’re grieving, I understand.
I want you to feel it, even though it hurts.

Because feeling it means it mattered. Because feeling it means they were real.