I’ve been listening to sad songs since September 8.

Not because I want to be sad. I don’t need any help with that right now. But because music has somehow been able to say the things I haven’t known how to say for myself.

Some songs hurt.

Some make me cry harder.

Some feel like they crack something open that I was trying very hard to keep together.

And then today, I found Never Alone.

[Listen to “Never Alone” by Jim Brickman ft. Lady Antebellum]

I have been struggling with whether I should write about this loss. Whether I should try to put any of it into words yet. Whether there even are words big enough for something that has changed my world so completely.

And I think the answer is yes.

Not because I understand any of this.

I don’t.

Not because I have found some beautiful meaning hidden inside grief.

I haven’t.

But because this is Healing Out Loud, and if I am going to be honest about healing, then I also have to be honest about what happens when life breaks you into millions of pieces and you’re not even sure they fit together the same way anymore.

On September 8, I lost one of the most important people in my life.

Even typing that sentence feels wrong.

There are some things your brain knows are true while every other part of you is still screaming that they cannot possibly be.

She was here.

And now she isn’t.

That is the part I cannot make sense of.

There are still moments when something happens and my first thought is that I need to tell her.

Something funny.

Something frustrating.

Something completely insignificant that she would have had an opinion about anyway.

And then reality comes rushing back in.

Again.

There are so many ordinary moments where my mind has not caught up yet.

I don’t think people talk enough about those moments.

The big moments hurt, of course.

But grief also lives in the tiny spaces.

It is reaching for your phone before remembering.

It is seeing something in a store.

Hearing a joke.

Watching something happen and already knowing exactly what that person would say.

And then there are the moments of numbness.

The kind of numbness you are not sure is ever going to leave.

You wonder if maybe this is just how you are going to feel now.

And then a smell.

A sound.

The way the sunset looks.

The wind.

A song.

Something so small that under any other circumstance you might not even notice it.

And the numbness leaves.

It does not fade.

It disappears.

And the pain sets in.

All at once.

Sharp and heavy and impossible to ignore.

And then, eventually, the numbness comes back.

I am learning that grief seems to move like that.

Back and forth.

Numbness.

Pain.

Numbness.

Pain.

Without warning and without permission.

Somewhere inside all of this, I have also started noticing things I have always taken for granted.

The way the light comes through the trees.

The sound of rain against the windows.

A breeze that feels just right.

The sky changing colors at the end of the day.

A song coming on at exactly the right moment.

The sound of someone laughing.

A quiet room.

A long drive.

The way home feels when you walk through the door.

The simple fact that the people you love are here.

Things that used to pass by without much thought suddenly feel important enough to stop for.

And at the same time, things that used to matter so much to me don’t seem to matter nearly as much anymore.

The little frustrations.

The arguments that felt enormous in the moment.

Being right.

Things not going exactly the way I planned.

The opinions of people who were never going to understand me anyway.

The things I spent too much time worrying about.

So much of it feels insignificant now.

Loss has a brutal way of rearranging your priorities without asking.

Things I thought were important suddenly aren’t.

And things I barely noticed before somehow feel sacred.

Maybe that is because love does not know how to disappear just because someone does.

She was one of the brightest people I have ever known.

She was the kind of person who could make someone feel important without making a production out of it.

She loved deeply.

She cared deeply.

She gave pieces of herself away constantly, without ever expecting anything in return.

She loved animals with a level of commitment that was honestly amazing.

There was not an animal on this earth that she wouldn’t at least consider bringing home.

“What’s one more?” became less of a question and more of a philosophy.

She was our own version of Snow White.

Animals trusted her.

People trusted her.

And somehow she always seemed to find the person—or creature—who needed a little extra love and give it to them.

She created beautiful things, too.

Cakes.

Cupcakes.

Sweets.

Art.

But some of the most beautiful things she created could never be photographed.

She made people feel seen.

She made people feel heard.

She made people feel cared for.

She made people feel like they mattered.

And since losing her, I have heard story after story about the ways she showed up for people.

Some I knew.

Some I didn’t.

Every new story feels like discovering another little piece of her.

And somehow that is both beautiful and devastating.

I keep getting stuck on the word “gone.”

Because what does that even mean?

I know what it means physically.

I understand the reality of it.

I hate the reality of it.

But how can someone who touched so many lives simply be gone?

She is woven into too many people.

She exists in stories.

In memories.

In habits.

In things she taught people.

In animals she cared for.

In creations she left behind.

In the way someone smiles when they tell a story about her.

In the things people will do differently for the rest of their lives because they knew her.

Every one of those things feels like another piece of her still existing somewhere in this world.

And I think that is why Never Alone hit me so hard today.

Because I am trying to understand how someone can be absent and still feel everywhere.

I don’t know exactly what I believe about what happens after we die.

I wish I did.

I wish grief came with certainty.

I wish someone could hand me a map and say, “Here. This is where she is. This is how you find her.”

Instead, grief seems to come with a million questions and almost no answers.

But there is one thing I do know.

Love did not become past tense on September 8.

The people who love her still love her.

Death changed the way that love exists.

It did not erase it.

Maybe that is one of the hardest parts of grief.

You still have all of this love, but suddenly you have nowhere physical to put it.

So you carry it.

You carry it in memories.

You carry it in stories.

You carry it in the things that person taught you.

You carry it in all the tiny pieces of your life that are different simply because they existed in it.

And I am learning that carrying it is heavy.

Some days impossibly heavy.

Grief does not care about schedules or whether you have things to do that day.

It simply arrives.

And right now, I am trying to let it.

My mind and my heart have not synced yet.

And I am okay with that.

Right now, there are still calls.

Visits.

Texts.

People checking in.

People showing up.

There is still this strange layer of activity around loss, and in some ways, I think it keeps part of the reality at a distance.

But I know those things will eventually slow down.

Life will continue.

And I will watch it continue from this place.

I have to be honest that I am scared of that.

I am scared of the moment when my mind and my heart finally catch up to each other.

I am scared of what happens when the totality of this loss sinks in like a lead weight.

When there are fewer distractions.

Fewer interruptions.

Fewer reasons to stay in motion.

When the world has returned to normal for everyone else and mine still has not.

I don’t know what that moment will feel like.

I don’t know when it will come.

I just know I am not rushing toward it.

I am trying not to rush myself through any of this.

I am trying not to decide what healing is supposed to look like before I have even figured out what losing her means.

Maybe one of the ways we carry someone forward is by carrying forward the things they gave us.

The kindness.

The laughter.

The compassion.

The ridiculous stories.

The lessons.

The way they made people feel.

Maybe we take those things and give them somewhere else to live.

Not because that makes losing them okay.

It doesn’t.

Not because it fills the space they left behind.

It can’t.

And certainly not because we are supposed to “move on.”

I hate that phrase.

I don’t want to move on from someone who mattered.

Maybe, eventually, we learn how to move forward.

There is a difference.

Moving forward allows us to carry them with us.

I am nowhere near okay.

I don’t know when I will be.

I don’t even know what “okay” is supposed to look like after losing someone who mattered this much.

Maybe healing does not mean becoming the person I was before September 8.

Maybe I cannot be that person again.

Maybe grief changes you because love changed you first.

And maybe healing is simply learning how to live inside that truth.

I wish she were still here.

I will wish that tomorrow.

And the day after that.

And forever.

But I am beginning to understand that missing someone and carrying them with you can exist at the same time.

Both things can be true.

And maybe that is what Never Alone means to me right now.

Not that grief suddenly feels less lonely.

Not that I am okay with her being gone.

Not that love magically fixes the unbearable parts of loss.

Just that someone who leaves this much of themselves behind does not completely disappear.

She is part of so many stories.

So many memories.

So many lives.

And as long as the people who knew her keep carrying forward the goodness she gave so freely, some piece of her light is still here.

I don’t know where grief takes me from here.

Right now, I am just trying to get through it one day, one hour, and sometimes one minute at a time.

Maybe this is part of that.

Writing it down.

Letting myself feel it.

Healing out loud.

And learning how to carry someone I am not ready to live without.