My second heartbeat

SOURCE

Grief changed me—how could it not? In the last eleven years, I’ve lost a daughter, three parents, and a few weeks ago, a sister. Each loss has carved something out of me, leaving gaps that I didn’t know could exist. They say the human heart is resilient, but they don’t talk about how much it stretches to hold both the joy of love and the weight of loss. I am still standing, but I am not the same. I walk through this world like a stranger in a body I no longer recognize, tethered to memories I can’t touch but can never escape.

There is an ache that never goes away, an emptiness that time doesn't fill. Time, they say, is a healer. But time doesn’t heal—it only teaches you to live with the wound. It dulls the edges, sure, makes the pain a little less sharp, but the wound is still there. It's quieter, more like a whisper in the background, but there are moments—unpredictable and ruthless—when it roars back to life, as raw as the day it first arrived.

I think grief is a second heartbeat, a constant pulse beneath the surface of things. You learn to live with it, like a shadow that never leaves your side. Some days, it weighs heavier, pulls you down into its depths. Other days, it’s lighter, letting you forget for a brief moment, only to remind you again that it’s still there. And yet, here I am. Still breathing. Still living. Not the same—never the same—but still here.

There is something in the staying, in the quiet persistence of getting up each morning, even when the weight of the world feels unbearable. It’s in the small moments—a sunrise with it's promise of beauty, the laughter of my boy over something silly I said, the warmth of Brian's hand reaching out to hold mine or his kiss on my forehead. Those are the moments that remind me there is still beauty left in this world, even if it’s tangled with sorrow. 

I’ve learned that life after loss isn’t about moving on; it’s about carrying forward. There is no moving past grief, no "getting over it." There’s just learning to live alongside it. Grief doesn’t leave, but neither does the love that once filled the space that now feels so empty. The love remains, woven into the very fabric of my being, intertwined with the pain.

Somehow, in the quiet of it all, I’ve come to understand that this is how we survive. We carry both—side by side, grief and love, loss and life—and in the space between, we find a way to keep going. It’s not easy, and it’s not without its darkness, but there’s something profoundly human in the persistence, in the hope that even in the depths of sorrow, life still offers its light.

Maybe that’s the lesson grief has taught me—that love is the thread that binds us to this world, and even when it’s torn, even when we lose the ones we hold dearest, it leaves traces behind. And it’s in those traces that I find the strength to keep walking, step by step, heart by fragile heart, into whatever comes next.

With the understanding that in this space, we don’t believe any of us needed to learn any damned lessons, what have you learned from your grief? How has it changed you?