My routine consists of distractions now ever since I had to say goodbye. Sports. Martial arts. Watching more YouTube than I normally should, but even while watching it, my body aches so bad where I don’t cry but it’s unbearable. So I go and downloaded TikTok again because somehow the algorithm on there is always sad videos that make me cry the second I watch them, which feels better than not crying and my heart aching. My whole body. My head keeps having this pressure headache all over. I don’t know, but crying and writing about him just feels better.

Maybe because grief is the only thing I have left of him.

when my grandfather passed, i thought it would be simple to pull together the memories we had of him. but it turned out to be almost impossible.

photos were on different phones, old emails, random whatsapp groups. voice notes and stories were scattered between family members. it felt like the pieces of his life were everywhere, but nowhere in one place.

i started wondering if this is just how it is now — that in the digital age, a person’s story gets broken into fragments that are really hard to hold onto.

has anyone else gone through this? how did you handle it?

My husband has been dead for 6.5 years. He died in a gruesome motorcycle accident oh his way to work. He was 38. We had been other for 13 years. Most days I still feel that I am in deep denial. I cannot believe that he is truly dead. I think he that is almost in some witness protection program, and his death was faked, even though there is no plausible explanation for that rationale. The other day I saw a man in a truck, the man who looked what I would imagine my husband would look 7 years later. He was even in a truck I think he would drive. I immediately tried to follow the truck, and it got lost in traffic. I sat and wondered if he could truly maybe be checking on me- Could it be him? I was so panicked/ rocked to the core it still is on my mind. I think I know better and hopefully maybe one day, I will be able To accept his death. That incident has really been on my mind. Has anyone else ever dealt with something similar?