Grief, Grace and Growing

10/7/26

Dear Rob,

Last week, at my MACM Leadership Conference, one of the speakers was a life coach. During one of our breakout sessions, he talked about life—the things that happen to us that change us forever. The moments that alter how we see the world, how we respond to it, and ultimately, how we see ourselves. One of our exercises was about the word impossible. What feels impossible to us? And how do we take something that feels impossible and somehow make it possible? As I sat there listening, I knew my answer immediately. What changed my life and my perspective? Your death. Your sudden, untimely death. What I once thought was impossible was learning how to navigate life without you. I never imagined I would have to. I never wasted an opportunity to tell you how much I loved you or how much I appreciated you, but I never once thought there would be a day when you wouldn’t be here. I thought we would grow old together. I thought we would watch our children grow up and then watch our grandchildren grow up. I thought there would be more holidays, more arguments, more laughter, more ordinary Tuesdays that I would have given anything to have back. I thought we had time. Now I know that we never truly know how much time we have with someone, and that knowledge has changed everything.

One of the words I kept coming back to during the conference was control. We were both guilty of allowing ourselves to become consumed by what other people said, what they did, and how they treated us. Your death taught me something I didn’t want to learn: we really don’t have much control. Last year, I was in shock. I was simply surviving. This year, I see things differently. More clearly. And one thing I understand now is that I cannot control what other people say or do. I cannot control how they grieve. I cannot control how they perceive me. I cannot control whether they choose empathy or judgment. But I can control what I allow to control me. I can control where I put my energy. I can control who has access to me. I can control what I want for myself and for our children. And that realization has been part of my healing.

The day after you died, I sought help immediately. I called and scheduled therapy for all of us because I knew I couldn’t navigate what had happened alone. Your death was so traumatic that it didn’t just affect my mind. My body took the hit, too. My nervous system was shattered. The one person who had been my safe place—my protector, my person—was suddenly gone without warning. And I was left to navigate your death and the world without you. I felt abandoned. I felt angry. I felt completely lost.

I’ve been seeing my therapist for a year now, and somehow, she has become family. She knows me so well. She has witnessed some of the darkest parts of my grief and has helped me find my way through them. She has been one of the greatest blessings I’ve received since you died. When I first started therapy, I didn’t have insurance. Your dad helped cover my expenses for a while, but then he started asking me, “When are you done with therapy?” Something inside me snapped. I found that question deeply disrespectful. He didn’t find you dead on our bed. He didn’t see your body being placed into a bag and carried out of our home. He didn’t stand in the middle of our house while police and medical examiners filled the space where our life had been. He didn’t experience the trauma I experienced that day. Your last conversation with your father was on 4/28/25. Your father had always struggled with empathy and sensitivity, but that question broke something in me. It was the final straw, and I stopped speaking to your parents.

Today, I returned to EMDR. Life had gotten too busy for in-person therapy, but I knew I needed to go back. Because EMDR is hard. It is exhausting. It requires me to go places in my mind that I don’t want to visit. When I’m finished, I’m physically drained. My eyes hurt from crying, my body feels heavy, and somehow, I sleep like a baby afterward. The hardest part of EMDR is the multitasking—watching the light, tapping my chest, and talking about your death all at the same time.

But I showed up today. There wasn’t as much multitasking. Instead, the focus was on the days leading up to your death. I thought about the day you fell in the shower and hit the back of your head. I thought about how you refused to seek medical attention. “I’m fine,” you shouted at me. I thought you were embarrassed, so I let it go. I thought about how you complained about headaches, how you had missed more work than you had in your 23 years there, and how you never went to the doctor. I thought about that weekend sitting outside in 100-degree weather for Charlie’s tournament. How you couldn’t sleep well because we were in a hotel. How you couldn’t sleep Monday night or Tuesday night.

And then Wednesday came. I walked through that entire day again. How you looked. What you said. What I saw. What I felt. And then the moment I found you dead on our bed. The police. The investigators, the medical examiner and funeral director. Strangers walking through our home. Our life changing in a matter of seconds. And in the middle of processing all of that, I found myself back at the moment your father asked me when I would be done with therapy. I felt the anger all over again. How could someone so close to me question how long I needed to heal during the darkest moment of my life? The anger came, then the tears, because underneath the anger was heartbreak. After talking about your death, I realized how deeply that question had wounded me. It wasn’t simply a question about therapy. To me, it felt like someone was questioning the amount of time I was allowed to grieve after experiencing something that completely shattered my life.

Today, I was asked a lot of hard questions. Questions about you. Questions about us. Questions about my grief. Questions that forced me to look at how far I’ve actually come in this grief journey I never wanted to be part of. I told my therapist something today that I have been carrying for a long time. I’m not only grieving the loss of my husband. I’m also grieving the pain caused by your parents after your death. They aren’t even my parents, yet their actions, behaviors, and comments have left wounds in me that an apology could never fully heal. And when I finally said that out loud, something shifted. Because for the first time, I understood something about you. I finally understood the pain you carried all your life. And I said out loud, I wish I could have protected you. I wish I could have saved you that night. But I couldn’t. It was too late. For the longest time, I blamed myself. I carried the guilt of not being able to protect you, not being able to save you. That was the piece of my grief I couldn’t lift from my shoulders. The piece I couldn’t put down.

But after several EMDR sessions and a lot of painful processing, I am finally beginning to understand something: it wasn’t me. I did everything in my power to love you, support you, help you, and heal the pain you carried. But I could not heal something you weren’t ready to face. I could not make those choices for you. And it was never my pain to carry. You had to choose to face your pain. You had to choose to heal. And what breaks my heart the most is that your life was cut so short that you never got the chance to see what healing could have looked like for you.

I paused today after saying those words. I let myself sit with them. I talked them through with my therapist—things I had locked inside my mind, things I had buried deep inside my heart because I was afraid of what would happen if I finally said them out loud. And today, I said them. All of them. I didn’t hold back. I said what needed to be said. And strangely enough, it felt good. Not because it didn’t hurt, but because I finally stopped carrying it silently. Maybe that is what healing looks like. Not forgetting. Not moving on. Not pretending it didn’t happen. But being willing to look directly at the things that broke you and finally say, this happened to me, this hurt me, this changed me, and I am still here.

I cannot control how other people process their grief. I cannot control how they think. I cannot control what they say. I cannot control whether they understand me. But I can control me. I can control what I want for myself and our children. I can decide what I need from the people I allow into my life. And I know now that I don’t want people in my life who question my grief timeline. I don’t want people who lack empathy. I don’t want people who make me feel like my healing is inconvenient.

My grief journey has taught me that the right people make the time to understand. The right people stay because they want to. The right people don’t make you question whether you are too much, too emotional, too broken, or taking too long to heal. And the people who continually show me that they are not healthy for my nervous system? They no longer belong in my life. I am learning to let them go.

I deserve peace. I deserve safety. I deserve to feel understood. I deserve to feel validated. I deserve to heal. And maybe that’s the answer to the question we were asked at the conference: How do we take what feels impossible and make it possible? I don’t know if I ever believed I could survive your death, but somehow, I am. I’m learning to live with the loss. I’m learning to understand what happened. I’m learning to understand you. I’m learning to understand myself. And I’m learning that surviving wasn’t the end of the journey. It was only the beginning.

You were never given the chance to heal, and that is why it means even more to me that I do. I will heal from losing you. I will heal from the wounds your death left behind. And I will heal from the disappointment of people I once believed were my family and friends. Not because the pain wasn’t real, but because I refuse to let the pain have the rest of my life. I can’t change what happened. I can’t bring you back. I can’t rewrite that Wednesday. But I can choose what happens next. And for the first time in a very long time, I am choosing me. Maybe that is what once felt impossible. And maybe, little by little, I am making it possible.