Grief, Grace and Growing

10/27/26

Dear Rob,

Life has been really busy.

Life has felt really heavy, too.

My poor, grieving heart has been racing with all the chaos, uncertainty, and responsibilities that seem to come with simply trying to live. Some days, I feel like I am moving from one thing to the next without having a moment to catch my breath. I keep going because I have to. The kids need me. Work needs me. My parents need me. Life doesn’t stop just because my heart is broken. But sometimes, beneath all the busyness, I wish I could stop for a moment, fall into your arms, and let you carry some of the weight for me.

When you were here, whenever one of us felt uncertain about where things were headed in the world or even in our little world, we relied on each other to get through it. For 26 years, I had someone who was ALWAYS there for me. You were one phone call away. If I needed anything, you would drop everything to be with me. I never had to wonder who I would call or who would show up. I had you. I had my person.

I don’t think I fully understood the comfort of that until it was taken away from me.

There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with losing your forever person. It isn’t necessarily about being physically alone. It is about living in a world where the one person who knew you best, who shared your history, who understood the little things without needing an explanation, is no longer here. It is about having a thousand thoughts running through your mind and no longer being able to turn to the person who would help you sort through them. It is about facing something difficult and instinctively wanting to tell your husband, only to remember that you can’t. It is about reaching for a person who has been part of your everyday life for more than half of it and realizing that the space where he belongs will remain empty.

As my boyfriend, best friend, and husband, you took your role as my protector so seriously. I miss that more than I can explain. You were my prepper. You were my researcher. You were the one who thought ahead, figured things out, and made sure everything happening behind the scenes was taken care of. You excelled at organizing, planning, and protecting the people you loved. You wanted to make sure we were prepared for whatever life threw our way.

And now, I am the one who has to figure everything out.

I have to be the planner, the decision-maker, the problem-solver, and the person who reassures everyone else that things will be okay. I have to make decisions without being able to run them by you. I have to sit with uncertainty without having your steady, logical mind to help me see things clearly. I have to find a way forward when all I really want is to hear you say that you have thought it through and that we will figure it out together.

Sometimes, I don’t want to be the strong one. I don’t want to be the person who can handle everything. I want my husband. I want my best friend. I want the other half of the life we built together. I want the person who made the world feel a little less frightening simply because I knew I didn’t have to face it alone.

Recently, there have been riots in France, and we are heading into the elections. I try not to watch the news too much because it makes me anxious. That reminds me of something else about us: you hated that I got my news from Instagram. You got your news from podcasts or by reading the newspaper. You always had to give me a hard time about it. Before you died, even you were feeling anxious about the direction the world was heading. But we could talk about it. We could share our concerns, question what was happening, and reassure each other that we would be okay because we had each other.

I cannot tell you enough how much I miss that reassurance. I miss the companionship. I miss the feeling of safety. I miss knowing that whatever was happening outside our home, I had someone beside me who would help me make sense of it.

I miss being able to say, “Rob, what do you think about this?” and hear your response. I miss our conversations, even the ones where we disagreed. I miss your perspective. I miss the comfort of knowing that when the world felt unpredictable, at least we could face it together.

People talk about losing a spouse as losing a partner, but it is so much more than that. You lose your sounding board, your safe place, your teammate, your witness to your life. You lose the person who remembers the stories that made you who you are. You lose the one who can look at you across a room and know exactly what you are thinking. You lose the person who has been there through so many versions of you that you never have to explain yourself.

And then you have to learn how to live without all of that while somehow continuing to be yourself.

Work has been busy, which I am thankful for. I love staying busy. I have been assigned more projects, and I know that if you were here, you would tell me, “Don’t be so good at your job.” The past few weeks, I have been coaching others and working on multiple projects. Time flies by so quickly that, before I know it, it is 5:45 p.m., and I still have to get home. I am supposed to be done by 4:30 p.m.! If you were here, you would shake your head and say, “I’m not surprised.”

I can practically hear you saying it, and I would probably laugh because you would be right.

There were so many nights when you patiently waited for me to come home from work. You would have dinner ready and wrapped in tin foil, making sure it stayed warm for me. You took care of those little things without making a big deal out of them. You knew I was working hard, and you found ways to make my evenings easier. You didn’t need recognition. You just did what you did because you loved me.

Now, I come home and have to figure out dinner for the kids. I have to think about what everyone will eat, what needs to be done, and what else I have to take care of before the day ends. No one is waiting to hand me a warm dinner wrapped in tin foil. There is no familiar voice asking me about my day while I settle in beside you. There is no quiet comfort in knowing that, for a little while, someone else has taken care of me.

It is such a small thing, isn’t it? A dinner wrapped in tin foil. But grief has a way of turning the smallest, most ordinary moments into the things you miss the most. Because it was never just about the dinner. It was about being loved in the everyday moments. It was about having someone who noticed what I needed and found a way to make my life a little easier.

I miss being taken care of by you, Rob. I miss the feeling of coming home to my husband.

Besides work, my father’s health is declining. Before you died, I was already so fearful about his declining health. He was losing weight so quickly. I remember lying in bed with you, terrified about what was happening, while you held me tightly as I sobbed. My dad is my whole world, and you knew that. You knew how much I loved him and how deeply the thought of losing him frightened me. You held me through those fears and let me cry when I couldn’t find the words to explain what I was feeling.

I was so shocked when I went to visit my dad and saw how frail his body had become. It was heartbreaking to see someone who had always been such a significant part of my life become so physically fragile. And never, in a million years, did I think you would go before my father.

I still struggle to understand that reality. How can the person I imagined growing old with be gone while I am still here, watching my parents age and worrying about what comes next? How can life take such unexpected turns, leaving me to face one fear while still carrying the unimaginable pain of another?

There are moments when I wish I could call you and tell you how scared I am. I wish I could crawl into bed beside you, lay my head on your chest, and let myself cry without needing to be brave or find a solution. I wish you could wrap your arms around me and remind me that I don’t have to figure everything out tonight.

But I can’t call you. I can’t climb into bed beside you. I can’t feel your arms around me.

And that is the cruel reality of this loneliness. The person I would turn to for comfort when life became overwhelming is the very person whose absence makes everything feel so much harder.

I was sharing with my therapist that grief has helped me mature in so many ways. I have grown emotionally. My relationship with my parents has strengthened, which feels strange to say because of how much pain brought us here. Because of your death, we have become closer. I hate that it took losing you for some of these things to change, but I cannot deny that it has.

I understand my childhood differently now. I understand more deeply what my parents sacrificed when they came to a new country and worked so hard to make sure their children were taken care of. I understand the long hours, the missed events, the financial sacrifices, and the dreams they put aside so we could have opportunities they never had.

At Vivian’s school How-To Fair, my mom joined me and said, “All those years when you had school events and no one came to support you because Dad and I were working, you and Rob never missed your kids’ activities.”

I could hear the sadness in her voice and see it in her eyes. I think she was looking back on the moments she wished she could have been there for me. I had to remind her that I had those opportunities because she and Dad worked so hard to help me get through college. Education was so important to my parents because they understood how much it could change our lives.

I wish you could have been there for that conversation. You would have understood the significance of it. You always appreciated the things my parents did for us, and you knew how deeply I loved them. You understood that family was not just about what we said but about what we did for one another.

Over the weekend, I did something that I think would have made you proud. I bought my dad a recliner.

You know very well that my dad would never spend money on himself. But with his heart failure, sleeping flat on his back has become uncomfortable. So, after my mom and I spent two hours talking on the phone, I told her that Dad needed a recliner and that I was going to buy one for his birthday.

And guess what? My dad didn’t object. He was actually open to it. Shocking, right?

I ordered a nice recliner from Wayfair, and it was delivered on Sunday. My mom sent me a picture, and Dad looked so happy. It was one of those moments when I could see the fruit of my labor. For an entire year, I have worked hard every single day. Through grief, exhaustion, and days when simply getting out of bed required more strength than anyone could see, I continued showing up at work and giving it everything I had.

And now, with my hard-earned paycheck, I was able to give something back to my dad. I was able to provide him with a little more comfort, something that might make his days and nights easier. I was able to do for him what he would have done for me without a second thought.

Throughout my life, my dad rarely bought himself anything. But when it came to his children, he never hesitated. He sacrificed so much for us. Being able to give back to him now feels meaningful in a way that is difficult to put into words.

I think you would have been proud of me, Rob. Not just because I bought the chair, but because I am still finding ways to care for the people I love. I am still showing up. I am still working hard. I am still trying to make a difference in the lives of the people who matter to me, even when my own heart is hurting.

But I wish I could have shared that moment with you. I wish I could have told you about the chair, shown you the picture, and heard what you had to say. I wish you could have seen Dad’s happiness and shared in mine. These are the moments I never realized I would miss so much: the ordinary victories, the little acts of love, the moments when something good happens and the first person I want to tell is no longer here.

I can be proud of myself and still wish you were here to be proud of me, too. I can feel grateful that I am able to provide for my family and still grieve the life in which we did these things together. I can recognize how far I have come and still wish, more than anything, that I didn’t have to come this far without you.

Although I was happy to provide a nice recliner for Dad, this week has felt heavy. Between work being busy and learning that a classmate of mine had died, my heart has felt weighed down. My classmate was only 45. You died at 44. It is not right. It is not fair.

I had known my classmate since elementary school. He was my first elementary school crush, LOL. You and I both saw him two years ago. We had drifted apart over the years, but there was history there. There were memories of a younger version of me, a time in my life that feels so far away and yet somehow still so close.

His death reminded me once again how fragile life is and how quickly everything can change. One day, people are here, living their ordinary lives, making plans, going to work, raising their families, and assuming there will be more time. And then, suddenly, there isn’t.

I know this reality because I have lived it. I know what it feels like to have the life you thought you were going to live ripped away from you. I know what it feels like to wake up in a world that looks the same but no longer feels like home because the person who made it home is gone.

I am 45 now, Rob. I am living a life that I never imagined I would have to live without you. We were supposed to grow old together. We were supposed to watch our children become adults, celebrate their milestones, and sit beside each other as we watched the family we built continue to grow. We were supposed to have more ordinary evenings, more conversations, more disagreements, more laughter, more dinners, more hugs, and more years.

I never thought that at this stage of my life, I would be learning how to live without my husband while also worrying about my aging father. I never thought I would have to carry so much uncertainty without the person who helped me feel grounded. I never thought I would have to learn how to be both the person who needs comfort and the person who must provide it for everyone else.

The hardest part is that life keeps asking things of me, even when I feel like I have nothing left to give.

I still have to make decisions. I still have to parent. I still have to work. I still have to pay bills, take care of the house, make dinner, answer questions, and figure out what comes next. I still have to show up for birthdays, school events, appointments, and all the ordinary responsibilities that make up a life.

And I do. I keep going.

But sometimes, I wonder if people understand how exhausting it is to keep going when the person who used to help you carry the weight is gone. There is a difference between being capable of doing something and wanting to do it alone. There is a difference between being independent and being left with no other choice. I can handle things, Rob. You know I can. But I never wanted to prove how strong I could be without you.

I wanted to grow old with you, not learn how to survive without you.

The heaviness I felt this week, with the news of my classmate’s death and everything else happening around me, made me feel as though my soul needed somewhere to rest. Maybe God knew I needed help, because tonight, Viv and I attended evening church service to quiet our minds before bed.

There was a great turnout. The minute I walked in and sat down in the pew, I felt a sense of peace. I felt at home. I felt safe.

We sang hymns. We prayed. We listened to Pastor Pedersen’s sermon. We ended the evening by singing the Lord’s Prayer, and as the words filled the sanctuary, I felt myself begin to settle. For a little while, my worries softened. The racing thoughts quieted. The heaviness that I had been carrying seemed to loosen its grip.

I didn’t have to solve anything in that moment. I didn’t have to be the supervisor, the mother, the daughter, or the woman trying to figure out how to navigate a life she never asked for. I could simply sit in the pew and let myself be held by something greater than my own strength.

I wish I could explain how much I needed that.

I think grief has made me realize that sometimes we don’t need answers. We don’t need someone to tell us how to fix everything or remind us that we are strong enough to handle it. Sometimes, we just need a place where our hearts can rest. We need to feel safe enough to stop carrying everything for a little while.

Tonight, church gave me that.

And on top of that, God knew my soul needed a friend to cheer me up. So Priscilla and I talked on the phone for the longest time. We laughed. We talked about everything. It felt wonderful. For a few hours, I didn’t feel quite so alone.

There is something so precious about a friendship that lets you laugh even when life is hard. A friend who can sit with you in the messiness of life, talk about your worries, make you laugh until the heaviness lifts a little, and remind you that there is still goodness in the world. For those few hours, I wasn’t thinking so much about everything I had to do or everything I had lost. I was simply enjoying a conversation with someone who made me feel connected.

I realized that no matter what life throws at us, having a good friend who can help lift our spirits during challenging times is like finding gold.

But as grateful as I am for my friends, my faith, and the people who continue to show up for me, I would be lying if I said it was the same as having you.

It isn’t.

My friends can listen to me. They can encourage me, make me laugh, pray with me, and remind me that I am loved. My faith can carry me through moments when I don’t understand how I will take another step. My family can surround me with love. I am deeply grateful for all of it.

But no one else is you.

No one else shares our exact history. No one else remembers every version of me that you knew. No one else can replace the familiar sound of your voice, the way your arms felt around me, the look you gave me when you knew I was overthinking something, or the comfort of knowing that I had a husband who had chosen me and continued choosing me through all the years of our life together.

No one else can be the person I married when we were young, the boy who became my best friend, the man who grew alongside me, and the husband I thought I would have beside me until our hair turned gray.

That is the loneliness I struggle to explain. I can be surrounded by people and still miss you with an ache that no amount of conversation can fill. I can laugh with a friend, enjoy a beautiful evening at church, feel proud of something I accomplished, and return home to the quiet realization that you are still not here.

Joy and grief can exist in the same heart. I am learning that I can have a good day and still miss you terribly. I can feel hopeful about the future and still grieve the future we were supposed to have together. I can be thankful for the people who love me and still long for the one person whose love shaped so much of my life.

Sometimes, I don’t even need anything extraordinary to happen to miss you. Sometimes, it is the smallest things. A story I want to tell you. A question I want to ask you. Something funny that happens at work. A decision I wish we could discuss. A hard day when I want to hear you tell me that I am overthinking things. An evening when I wish dinner were already made. A night when I want to curl up beside you, feel your warmth, and know that for once, I don’t have to be the one holding everything together.

I miss having my person.

I miss knowing that there was someone in this world who would put me first, who would protect me, who would stand beside me when life became difficult, and who would never make me feel like I had to earn my place in his life. I miss the security of our marriage. I miss the familiarity of our love. I miss the ordinary rhythm of being a wife.

I miss the version of myself who could turn to you without thinking twice. The woman who knew that no matter what happened during the day, she would eventually come home to her husband. The woman who could be scared, frustrated, overwhelmed, or uncertain because she knew she didn’t have to work through every feeling alone.

Now, I have to learn how to comfort myself in the moments when I need you most. I have to find ways to quiet my own fears, make peace with uncertainty, and remind myself that I can keep going even when I wish someone else could take the lead for a little while.

I am learning, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

I would give anything to have one more ordinary day with you. I would give anything to sit beside you on the couch, talk about absolutely nothing, hear you make one of your matter-of-fact comments, and feel your hand reach for mine. I would give anything to complain about something at work and have you tell me not to be so good at my job. I would give anything to hear you moving around the house, doing the things you always did without making a big deal out of them.

I would give anything to have the life that once felt so ordinary and now feels like the greatest gift I could ever ask for.

I end this evening with a prayer. I pray for my dad’s health. I pray for our children, that they continue to grow into the people we hoped they would become. I pray for the strength to keep navigating this life, for the wisdom to make good decisions, and for the ability to recognize the moments of joy that still find their way to me. I pray for peace when the world feels uncertain and for comfort when the loneliness becomes too much.

And on the days when life feels hard, I think of you.

I think about what you would say to me. I imagine your responses, your logic, your honesty, and the way you could sometimes make me laugh even when I was upset. I think about our hugs and how much I miss them. I miss your logical reasoning skills. I miss your matter-of-fact answers. I miss the fearless Rob who expressed how he felt without sugarcoating anything. I miss the Rob who made it clear that if I was hurt, you were hurt, too. I miss the Rob who would do anything to make sure I wasn’t sad.

I miss the man who loved me in ways that made me feel safe, seen, and protected. I miss the husband who knew that sometimes I needed reassurance, sometimes I needed a solution, and sometimes I just needed him to hold me and let me cry.

Most of all, I miss the person who was supposed to be here for all of this.

You were supposed to be the one I called when Dad’s health declined. You were supposed to be the one I told about my classmate. You were supposed to be the one who celebrated with me when I could do something meaningful for my parents. You were supposed to be beside me through the busy workdays, the difficult parenting moments, the uncertainty about the world, and all the little things that make up a life.

You were supposed to be here.

And sometimes, that is the only way I know how to explain grief. It is the constant awareness of all the moments that should have included you but don’t. It is the ache of living through things you should have been here to witness. It is the heartbreak of realizing that the person you planned to share your entire life with is no longer here to share it.

I know I am learning to live again. I know I am growing, changing, and finding ways to move forward. I know there is still love, laughter, faith, and goodness in my life. I am grateful for every bit of it.

But I hope you know that moving forward does not mean I want to leave you behind. Learning to stand on my own does not mean I wanted to stand alone. Becoming stronger does not mean I am grateful that I had to learn how to live without you.

I would choose our ordinary life a thousand times over this life without you. I would choose the dinners, the conversations, the disagreements, the laughter, the responsibilities, the hugs, and even the moments when you told me I was getting my news from the wrong place. I would choose all of it, because it meant I got to choose you.

For 26 years, I knew what it felt like to have you in my corner. I knew what it felt like to be loved by someone who had seen me grow up, who knew my heart, and who wanted to build a life with me. I knew what it felt like to have a forever companion.

Now, I am learning what it feels like to carry that love without the person who gave it to me standing beside me.

And, Rob, it is so lonely.

Not because I have no one. I do. Not because my life has no meaning. It does. But because the one person I want to share it all with is the one person I cannot reach.

I miss you in the chaos. I miss you in the quiet. I miss you when I am scared, when I am proud of myself, when I need advice, and when something makes me laugh. I miss you when I come home at the end of a long day and realize that, once again, I have to figure everything out on my own.

I miss you in the life we were supposed to have.

And I miss the other piece of me that went with you when you died.

I know I am still here. I know I am still Jeaney. But there is a part of me that only existed in the life we shared, in the way you knew me, loved me, challenged me, and made a home with me. I am learning who I am without your daily presence, but I will always carry the woman I was when I was yours.

I don’t know exactly what the next chapter holds. I don’t know how many more difficult days I will have to navigate or how many times I will wish I could pick up the phone and hear your voice. But I know that I will keep going. I will keep loving our children. I will keep showing up for my parents. I will keep working, praying, laughing with my friends, and looking for the moments of goodness that remind me life is still worth living.

I will keep living, even while I miss you.

Not because the loneliness has disappeared. Not because I have figured out how to fill the space you left behind. But because the love we shared is still part of me, and I want to keep living a life that honors it.

Tonight, I wish I could crawl into bed beside you, tuck myself into your arms, and hear you tell me that everything is going to be okay. I wish I could close my eyes knowing that tomorrow, when the world feels uncertain again, I will have you to turn to.

Instead, I will say my prayers, take a deep breath, and remind myself that I have made it through another day.

I love you, Rob. I miss you more than these words will ever be able to explain.

And if there is one thing I wish you could understand, it is this: I am not just grieving the man I lost. I am grieving the life we were supposed to live together. I am grieving the husband who should be beside me, the best friend who should be answering my calls, and the forever companion who should be helping me carry the weight of this world.

I am grieving you in all the moments you should have been here.

I will always be grateful that I got to be your wife. But I will never stop wishing I could still be.

Forever your munchkin,

Jeaney