03/19/2026
For two years, I did not grieve you.
Not really.
I stayed busy.
I kept moving.
I worked. I pushed. I filled every corner of my life so there was no room for stillness, because stillness might have meant feeling the full weight of losing you. I think part of me was pretending you were still somewhere nearby, just in another room, still somehow within reach.
No matter how much I pushed through, I could never function in my usual way as the anniversary approached. My body knew what my mind refused to hold. Something in me would tighten, dim, quiet. I could work, but not fully breathe. I could keep going, but not with ease.
Then, in the middle of other hard and intense moments in my life, someone I trust told me to walk away for a week. Work from somewhere else. Take the kids. Go to a cabin. Make the most of small moments.
So I did.
And somehow, in a cabin in the woods, surrounded by firewood, daily chores, silence, children, and the slow unraveling of winter into spring, grief found me.
Not as chaos.
Not as collapse.
Just honestly. Quietly. Fully.
By the fire. In the quiet. In the woods. In the space I had refused to give myself. Surrounded by my children, by silence, by nature, by a softer rhythm of life, late night hours catching up on work after the kids slept soundly, I finally let myself feel the loss of you.
In the stillness that had been missing. In the strange mercy of not having to interact with the world. I filled it with all the things we loved and shared together intentionally.
And somehow, it also felt like celebrating your life.
There is something sacred in this week now. I still work, but differently. I am wrapped in warmth (the kids would say too much warmth, literally), tucked away in a cabin, living my introvert dream, not performing for the world, not rushing to meet it at every turn. I give my children more of me. I give myself more air. And I give grief a place to exist without fighting it.
Maybe that is the lesson.
That sometimes grief does not ask to be conquered.
It asks for space.
A different setting.
A softer grip.
A week where the world is allowed to wait.
And maybe that is why I return.
Because for one week, I let life become smaller and truer. I work, yes - but differently. I listen more. I hide a little. I rest in the quiet. I let the fire burn low and then build it back up again. I let the kids lead me into wonder. I let myself feel what I could not feel before.
And somewhere in all of that, you do not feel farther away.
You feel woven in.
Gentle Reminder to my fellow business owners: Entrepreneurs are exceptionally good at staying busy, but busy can become a hiding place when we do not want to feel what is asking for our attention.
