It has been exactly one year since I lost him. People tell you it gets easier, but for me, the silence in the house has only grown louder. I woke up this morning feeling the weight of it more than ever—grief a kind of disease for which no cure can be found.
I walked through the hallway, trailing my hand along the walls where his photos used to hang, but I couldn’t bear to look at them today. And those days when life and its living proves harder than usual, I feel your absence all the more. It wasn’t just missing him; it was the physical lack of him. There was no comfort from your embrace, no soothing from your voice, no ease of my being by the sight of you soft in my eyes.
I decided to finally go through his old desk in the study, something I’d been avoiding for months. I pulled open the bottom drawer, expecting just old bills or stationery. Instead, tucked far in the back, I found a small, leather-bound journal I had never seen before.
My hands trembled as I opened it. The first entry wasn’t a date or a list; it was a message to me, written in his familiar, messy scrawl. He must have written it when he first got sick, knowing I would find it eventually.
It read: “My love, don’t be afraid of the quiet. Close your eyes. In memory and dream I am returned to you, returned home.“
I collapsed into his old chair, clutching the book to my chest, tears finally flowing freely. I closed my eyes, and for the first time in a year, I didn’t see the hospital or the ending. I saw us on the porch, laughing. I felt him.
I turned to the very last page of the journal. He had left one final note, a promise that broke the heavy chain of grief around my heart:
