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Not all grief begins after someone is gone. Sometimes it starts earlier... quietly... when you can feel a change coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. A deployment date on the calendar. A diagnosis that changes the air in the room. A loved one getting weaker, even if nobody says it out loud. A relationship that still exists, but feels like it’s already slipping away. It’s a strange place to be, because technically nothing has happened yet... and still, something i

There’s a part of grief that doesn’t always get talked about out loud. It’s the part that sounds like: I should have called. I should have visited more. I should have gone that last time. Those thoughts can show up quietly... or they can replay until they feel louder than everything else. I understand that kind of guilt. When I was in high school, my grandfather died of cancer. He was my dad’s dad, and he wasn’t just someone we saw on holidays. He was part of our routine, par

In the beginning, the phone lights up. There are messages. Texts. Notifications. People reaching out. The loss is visible. It feels acknowledged. And then, slowly, the messages become less frequent. The group chats pick back up about everyday life. Social media keeps scrolling. And one day you realize you’re still living in the “after,” even though everyone else seems to have stepped back into normal life. For me, that “after” has a face. My grandmother. My Bachi. We were clo