“Grief only exists where love lived first.” (Franchesca Cox)

The news came to me unexpectedly, in the middle of the day, which somehow made it harder to take in:  my ex-husband had died.  Even now, as I write these words, it feels a bit surreal, yet I know it shouldn’t.  Life is nothing if not an evolving series of beginnings and endings.  

We had not spoken in years. Because we did not have children together, there were no calls to make, no occasions that drew us back into each other’s lives, no remaining thread between us. Time had done what time does: it carried us farther from the world we once shared and into the existence of the separate lives we came to lead.  

When a long-term relationship comes to a fractious end, it leaves a scar beneath the surface, shaped by both hurtful wounds and the tenderness of a love that was once genuine.  With time, even the sharpest pain usually softens.  And with age, what rises first is the small mercy we give to ourselves when we understand the past can no longer be altered – the memories that are worth keeping, the memories of love. 

And still, the news landed in a delicate place. I did not want to return to the past, nor was I holding on to the love we once shared.  What unsettled me was something deeper: the realization that a person who had once known me so intimately—who had shared my days, my moods, and the younger version of myself—was suddenly gone from the world.  It made me stop and grieve, not just for him, but for myself as this chapter of my life was turning it’s final page.  

Forgiveness is the balm that soothes the deepest heartache. When we learn to offer it to others and to ourselves, remembering that each of us was a flawed human being as we moved through this world, it allows the heart to keep beating with gentleness instead of pain.

To L. Until we meet again, I will carry with me the best of what we shared together and the moments that are worthy of remembrance—like pressed flowers between the pages of my heart, in the part that was touched by you.