When someone close to us dies the world doesn’t just feel different… it is different. The world is split open. And you’re expected to keep showing up. Like you didn’t just lose the person who made you, held you, knew you before you did. 

Sure, “time heals wounds” (really it just changes them) but, grief doesn’t go away just because the UV index is higher. 

And you might be feeling... stuck.
Grieving. Missing them. Feeling like a ghost in a season that once held your best days.

Really, there’s no manual for this.

No morning routine checklist that makes space for grief and breakfast and getting ready for daycare.

You don’t have to slap a smile on your face because the calendar says “celebrate.”

You don’t have to cheer for a kind of freedom that feels so out of reach. 

You don’t have to pretend that that crack of the fireworks feels fun and comfortable. 

No one teaches you how to live after death.  No one tells you that you might crave a relationship before your heart feels ready. 

That laughter might feel like betrayal. 

That kissing someone new might leave you sobbing in the shower after. 

They were your home. Your person. The one who saw you in your quiet moments, who finished your sentences, who made you feel like you could exhale in a world that never seems to let up.

There’s this moment after someone dies where everything goes strangely quiet. The world has stopped spinning and life feels like it’s paused. Your heart is numb and raw.

Grief anniversaries don’t announce themselves. 

They don’t send a reminder. 

Even if you have them marked on the calendar, they still crawl into your chest when you least expect it.

Let’s get one thing straight: Grief doesn’t come with an expiration date.

We’ve all heard the phrase that “time heals all wounds,” but anyone who’s actually been cracked open by loss knows the truth: time changes grief.