The What-ifs
There’s a kind of pain that comes after losing someone that nobody really prepares you for. It isn’t only the missing them. It’s the second-guessing. The replaying. The what-ifs that move in and refuse to leave.
What if I’d said something sooner. What if I’d pushed harder. What if I’d made the appointment myself. What if I’d refused to take no for an answer. What if they’d listened. What if I had.
Most people who have loved someone through illness or loss know exactly what that spiral feels like. And how hard it is to find the way out of it.
But here’s what I want you to remember, because I think you need to hear it today.
You are judging yourself by an ending you couldn’t see coming. Of course, it all looks different in reverse. It always does. You were not living with the answers you have now. You were living in the middle of it, doing the best you could with what you knew, loving someone the best way you understood how.
And you showed up. Over and over again. You made the calls, sat in the waiting rooms, researched things at midnight you never thought you’d need to know. You held their hand. You rearranged your life around theirs without a second thought.
The what-ifs are part of grief. They come because you loved deeply. But they are not your whole story.
You were the one who showed up. Who stayed. Who loved them in every way you knew how.
They knew. And somewhere underneath all of those what-ifs, so do you.
My book will be available soon.
This is a collection of writings centered around grief, love, loss, and learning how to keep living after life changes forever.