The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do to stare blankly. It's not the shattering itself that breaks you--it's the silence that follows, the quiet space where you realize there's is nothing left to salvage. And in that moment, you know that you'll never be the same again. You'll build something new, perhaps, but it will never be what you lost."
-~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Half Of My Heart Is Gone
Son, I wish I could wake up and see you standing there.
Then I would know that it was just a nightmare.
Son, I remember when you were small and how you would hold my hand,
and as you grew older you became my best friend.
Son, I have 33 years of memories that I will treasure and keep safe in my heart.
We share a bond that time and distance can never break apart.
Son, oh how my heart aches so.
I would love to have you back and never let you go.
Son, where there was happiness,
now there is sadness.
Son, how I long to hear your voice and see your beautiful smile
and have you back for just a little while.
Son, until that day I see you again,
I will look to the sky and search among the stars for my son and best friend.
Love,
Mom
Barbara J. Rouse
Grief is so hard to explain
l've heard it described as
loneliness and despair at once
hopelessness,
But for me, grief is a scream that lives inside of
me: one that only I can hear. I never let it out in
front of others and they assume everything's
okay. My scream says differently.
If I have a moment of happiness, the scream
cranks up its volume, adding an extra layer of
guilt. I'm not sure if it's a good explanation but it's
my experience
If the silent scream lives inside you, l'm with you.
I might not hear your scream but I know it well
You think you’re just cleaning. Just organizing a cluttered closet. Just moving things from one dusty box to another, a mundane task. But then you find them. The photos. Tucked inside an old, forgotten envelope or slipped unexpectedly between the pages of a book you haven’t opened in years.
You pause. Because suddenly you’re not in this room anymore, not in this present moment. You’re back there. Back to a time and a place where they still lived, where their presence was a given. Where the light still fell just right on their face, illuminating their features with familiar warmth. Where you still innocently thought you had more time, an endless stretch of shared moments ahead.
And it hits you—the profound power of a single photograph to both wreck you and comfort you in the very same breath. You stare at their eyes, forever frozen in time, and wonder if they knew that one day, this would be the picture you’d hold like it was made of something sacred, something irreplaceable. You trace the edges of the faded image with your fingertip. You whisper, "I miss you," the words a quiet lament into the silence. You try desperately to remember what their laugh sounded like on that particular day, the way their eyes crinkled when they smiled, the exact feeling of just being near them.
You hold the photo tightly, almost like it might dissolve if you let go, as if releasing your grip would mean losing the memory forever. And maybe for a second, a fleeting, beautiful second, you feel incredibly close to them again. Like the photo is a magical portal. Like they’re actively trying to say, "I’m still here, tucked away in the memories you thought you lost, waiting to be found."
Grief has a way of showing up uninvited, crashing into your quiet moments. But sometimes, when it arrives, it brings a picture with it. And in that picture, a moment you didn’t even know your heart still desperately needed, a tender reminder of Love & Loss transformed into enduring connection.
A message for Nikk on his date of birth.
We wish that people who have not lost a child understood this:
Grief like this is not sadness.
It is not “missing someone.”
It is not something time touches, let alone heals.
It is waking up every single day in a world that feels fundamentally wrong — like gravity shifted overnight and no one else noticed. The air is heavier. Colors are duller. Sound feels too loud or too far away. And one of the people who made the world make sense is gone.
I wish you understood that when we suddenly cry or tear up “out of nowhere,” it isn’t out of nowhere at all. It’s because his name crossed our mind. Or his laugh. Or a memory ambushed us in the cereal aisle. Or because we suddenly remembered — again — that our child is dead. That realization doesn’t happen once. It happens over and over and over, like a fresh wound reopening without mercy.
I wish you understood that we don’t get breaks from this. We don’t get to “put it down.” We carry it in our chests, in our stomach, in our bones. We carry it into every room we walk into. We carry it even when we smile. Especially when we smile.
We wish you knew that advice hurts.
That “at least” is a knife, that silence sometimes screams louder than words. That platitudes don’t comfort — they isolate.
We wish you understood that we are not the same people we were before our child died — and we will never be those people again. Those people died with our child. We are someone else now, someone learning how to live with an ache that never leaves and a love that has nowhere to go.
We wish you knew that milestones feel like landmines. Birthdays. Holidays. Ordinary Tuesdays. Watching other children grow older, finding happiness in their career and in life, while ours never will. Watching the world move forward while we are frozen in the moment everything shattered.
We wish you understood that when we talk about our child, we are not trying to make things uncomfortable. We are simply trying to keep him alive in the only way we can now — through our voices, our memories, our breath. Please don’t rush past his name. Say it. Say it again. He mattered. He still does.
We wish you understood that a parents relationship with surviving siblings of the child can be strained as the deceased child may seem to be the focal point, and heavy grief can inhibit being present and supportive to remaining children. The unconscious fear of losing another child can create a helicopter attitude, an increased need for daily contact, and sometimes, seemingly unreasonable demands.
We wish you understood that grief this deep makes you question everything — your future, your identity, your purpose. Some days we are only still here because believing we will see him again is the only thing that keeps us breathing in a world where he does not exist.
We wish you understood this most of all: If we seem distant, fragile, angry, numb, or “different,” it’s because we are surviving something that should never have happened. We are carrying the unbearable, and still showing up. That is not weakness. That is a kind of endurance we pray you never have to learn, and one that we are still learning.
Lastly, we hope that you understand that Nikk's death did not just affect us. He has a loving mother and father, two wonderful sisters, a nephew, cousins and aunts and uncles, friends and lovers, business associates and acquaintances, all of whom were impacted by his death. We hope that the same compassion and support that we need is shared with them as well.
Please be gentle. Please don’t forget our Nikk. Please understand that this grief is not something we get over, instead it is something we learn to carry.
And we carry it for the rest of our lives.
Miss you, Nikk, every minute of every day.
Wish you were here for your 45th.
Grief relishes in catching me unaware.
Grief, when I spit it, can be handled, manipulated, finessed and concealed. But grief likes to hide, to ambush. It leaps out of nowhere, startling , mocking , stripping away any sense of normalcy. It lulls me to sleep, then blindsides me.
💔💔💔
To all of the Bravest souls that are walking this earth without one or more of your children:
Some of us get a tattoo
Some of us move
Some of us put it all in a box
Some of us keep it all where it was left
Some of us don’t get out of bed
Some of us take antidepressants
Some of us take anxiety pills
Some of us have guilt
Some of us see a shrink
Some of us hold it in
Some of us blurt it out
Some of us sleep with something that was special to their child
We all cry in the shower
We all cry in the car
We all cry so hard it feels like we are no longer breathing
We all have the same wish
We all want to go back
We all have that song, phrase or photo that will bring us to our knees
We all put on our mask that is needed for the day or in a moment
We all know what’s it’s like to live with a crushed heart
We all have a terrible fear we could lose another child
We all want to wake up!
We all wish for another moment
Just know any way YOU grieve is ok there is no right or wrong.
I’m leaving you here. For one night I want to forget. And maybe smile.
Grief: You can’t leave me behind.
I’m tired. You are heavy. Sometimes you are just too much to bear.
Grief: I am a part of you now.
I can shut the door. Forget you for a few hours.
Grief. That is not how this works. I will always catch up to you.
Why are you doing this to me? It’s not fair. You are much too dark to take everywhere I go.
Grief: Maybe we need another way to think about this.
How would there be any other way?
Grief: Well..for starters, I am only here because of love.
No. You are here because my loved one died.
Grief: But you still feel love.
Always.
Grief: You just renamed me. That is why I am here. I am Love always. You can’t just leave me. I’m a part of you.
But it hurts so much. No more phone calls. Hugs... Plans. Empty chairs. Holidays… I can’t take this pain.
Grief. Running from me only makes it harder for you. Sit with me. I am only the love you still have to give. So feel it. Give some of it to yourself. Carry me with you. Picture me as only love and light.
So why have I been so afraid of you?
Grief. Because reality is hard to accept. This is the hardest thing to do. It takes time to get used to me. But I am here to help you remember.
I just want to be over this.
Grief: The pain you feel when a memory crosses your mind will someday make you smile. It’s because the longer you carry me with you…the wonderful memories will stay with you too.
So instead of carrying grief…I can think of it as carrying my love?
Grief: light a candle within me. Love isn’t dark. I’m only light. I remain because all your love your person still remains in you. I am love you wish to still give. I cannot be left behind. I carry on with you until the day you reunite.
So hold that light in your hand. And carry that love with you. To the very last of days.
Sometimes life doesn’t give you closure—
it gives you courage instead.
This wolf didn’t wait for the forest to part,
for the path to be clear,
for the pain to make sense.
He just walked forward—
with questions still unanswered,
and wounds still healing.
Because strength isn’t always loud.
Sometimes it looks like
waking up and choosing to keep going,
even when the weight of yesterday
still sits heavy on your back.
So when the past knocks,
don’t open the door—
open your chest,
breathe deep,
and remind yourself:
You are not what broke you.
You are what survived it.
2025 Goodbye To Nikk, on what should have been your 45th year on earth.
Joseph P Kennedy wrote: "When the young bury the old, time heals the pain and sorrow. But when the process is reversed, the sorrow remains forever.”
And forever it is. I still wake up every day and check my texts to see what silliness you have shared with me. I still glance at the ringing phone expecting it to be a call from you. I still check my email wondering what new shenanigans you will be sharing. And each time, my heart breaks a little more.
I will forget for a moment, and then there it is again, the realization hitting me in the chest, taking my breath away.
I keep screaming inside.
I keep waiting for that healing everyone says will come.
I keep waiting for that closure of which they speak.
But yeah, I call bullshit, 'cause it ain't happenin'.
I guess it won't heal until I join you, Nikk.
One love.
You Don’t Just Lose Someone Once
You lose them over and over,
sometimes many times a day.
When the loss, momentarily forgotten,
creeps up and strikes from behind.
Fresh waves of grief crash in as the realization hits home:
They are gone.
Again.
You don’t just lose someone once.
You lose them every time you open your eyes to a new dawn.
As you awaken, so does your memory,
and with it, the jolting bolt of lightning that tears through your heart:
They are gone.
Again.
Losing someone is not a single event; it’s a journey.
There is no end to the loss.
There is only the learned skill of staying afloat
when the waves wash over you.
Be kind to those navigating these stormy seas.
They face a journey ahead of them,
a daily shock to the system
as they realize, once more:
They are gone.
Again.
You don’t just lose someone once.
You lose them every day,
for a lifetime.
You don’t just lose someone once.
You lose them when you close your eyes at night.
And as you open them each morning.
You lose them throughout the day.
An unused coffee cup.
An empty chair.
A pair of boots no longer there.
You lose them as the sun sets.
And darkness closes in.
You lose them as you wonder why.
Staring at a star lit sky.
You lose them on the big days.
Anniversaries.
Birthdays.
Graduations.
Holidays.
Weddings.
And the regular days too.
You lose them in a song they used to sing.
The scent of their cologne.
A slice of their favorite pie.
You lose them in conversations you will never have.
And all the words unsaid.
You lose them in all the places they’ve been.
And all the places they longed to go.
You lose them in what could have been.
And all the dreams you shared.
You lose them as the seasons change.
The snow blows.
The flowers blossom.
The grass grows.
The leaves fall.
You lose them again and again.
Day after day.
Month after month.
Year after year.
You lose them as you pick up the broken pieces.
And begin your life anew.
You lose them when you realize.
This is your new reality.
They are never coming back.
No matter how much
You miss them or
Need them.
No matter how hard you pray.
They are gone.
And you must go on.
Time marches on, carrying them further and further way.
You lose them as your hair whitens and your body bends with age.
Your memory fades.
And the details begin to blur.
Their face stares back at you from a faded photograph.
Someone you used to know.
You think you might have loved them once.
A long time ago.
Back then.
When you were whole.
You don’t just lose someone once.
You lose them every day.
Over and over again.
For the rest of your life.
