Thirty years since Jack and I stood before the people we loved and promised:

For better or worse.
In sickness and in health.
Till death do us part.

We had no idea how much those vows would ask of us.

We lived the better and the worse. We held onto one another through the unimaginable grief of losing our son, Garret. We faced sickness, heartbreak, and eventually death. We lived those vows fully—not perfectly, but faithfully, honestly, and with a love that never ran when life became hard.

Jack made me a better person.

After Garret died, he showed me what it looked like to live graciously inside unbearable sorrow. He loved people more than himself. He taught me that even when life breaks your heart, you can still choose kindness, hope, and love.

And somehow, through the way he lived and loved me, Jack gave me the courage to keep living without him.

Thirty years later, I still miss him. I always will. But I also carry the life he helped shape—the love he taught me to give, the hope he helped plant, and the quiet knowing that he would be proud of the woman I became.

Our marriage did end with “till death do us part.”

But the love didn’t.

Happy 30th anniversary, Jack.

Thank you for teaching me how to love—and, somehow, how to keep living when you could no longer stay.

One person remembers the final conversation. Another remembers the phone call. Someone else remembers who arrived first, who didn’t come at all, what the doctor said, or what the minister forgot to mention. One person remembers peace. Another remembers panic. One remembers the casseroles lining the counter and the way the community showed up. Another remembers standing in a crowded room and feeling completely alone.

The person we loved may have died only once, but the ending keeps living in many different minds. And sometimes those memories do not agree.

We think shared loss means shared memory

After someone dies, families often speak in collective language. We went through this. We lost him. We were there. All of that can be true. But grief is deeply individual, even when the death belongs to an entire family.

The wife did not lose the same person the daughter lost. The mother did not lose the same person the sibling lost. The friend who knew the younger, wilder version of them is not mourning the exact same person as the neighbor who knew them later in life.

Every relationship held a different piece of who they were. So, of course, every person also holds a different piece of how they left.

That doesn’t mean anyone is lying. It doesn’t necessarily mean someone has remembered it wrong. Trauma can blur some details and sharpen others until they feel carved in stone. Love has its own camera angle, too. We remember what our hearts were able to notice while they were breaking.

My memories belong to me

There are moments from Garret’s death that I will carry for the rest of my life. There are details Jack and I shared because we were his parents, standing inside the same nightmare. But even Jack and I did not experience every moment in the same way. We were a mother and a father. We had different relationships with our son, different fears, and different ways of trying to survive what should never have happened.

Then, when Jack died, I held another ending from a place no one else could fully stand. Other people lost Jack, too. Graci lost her dad. His parents lost their son. Friends lost someone they loved.

But I lost my husband.

I remember lying beside him in his hospice bed. I remember telling him I loved him forever. I remember telling him I would be brave, even though I had no idea how. I remember giving him permission to go be with Garret and asking him to tell our boy that his mommy loved him and missed him.

That is part of Jack’s ending as I lived it.

Someone else may remember the medical details. Someone may remember a conversation from days earlier. Someone may remember arriving, leaving, praying, waiting, or watching the clock. Those memories belong to them. Mine belong to me.

Grief becomes especially lonely when someone tries to correct the part of the story that lives inside your bones.

Families sometimes argue over facts when they are really protecting pain

After a death, the smallest details can suddenly feel enormous. Who was in the room? What were the last words? Did they know they were dying? Were they peaceful? Who made the decision? Why wasn’t I called sooner? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

Sometimes these are questions looking for facts. But often, underneath them, there is something much more tender:

• Did I matter?

• Was I loved?

• Did I do enough?

• Did they leave knowing how much I cared?

That is why conversations about the ending can become so charged. We are not simply comparing memories. We are defending our place in the life of someone who can no longer reassure us.

Grief is already painful enough without turning it into a courtroom where everyone must prove their version. There may be facts that matter, of course. But there are also emotional truths that can sit beside one another without canceling each other out.

You can remember peace while I remember fear. You can be grateful for the care they received while I remain angry about what happened. You can cherish the final days while I can barely speak about them.

We can both love the same person fiercely and still tell the ending differently.

The ending is not the whole story

One of grief’s cruel little tricks is how easily the final chapter can begin to overshadow the entire book. The diagnosis becomes bigger than the birthdays. The hospital room becomes clearer than the family vacations. The last breath grows louder than all the laughter that came before it.

I understand why. Endings are heavy. They demand attention. They divide life into before and after without asking anyone’s permission—which is frankly very rude of them. But the way someone died is not the sum of the way they lived.

Our memories of the ending may never match perfectly. Maybe they aren’t supposed to. Perhaps our work is not to force every memory into one approved family version. Perhaps it is to make room around the table for each person’s piece of the story.

To listen without correcting. To become curious instead of defensive. To say, “I didn’t experience it that way, but I believe that is how it felt to you.”

And then, when we can, to remember something beyond the ending. The way they laughed. The stories they told more than once. The meal they always ordered. The music they loved. The ordinary ways they made a life.

Because the ending matters. It changed us. It deserves to be spoken about honestly. But it does not get to claim every page.

Maybe remembering differently is another way of remembering completely

No single person holds the whole story of someone else’s life. We each carry a chapter, a handful of scenes, a version of the ending, and a love shaped by the relationship we had.

Together, those memories may be messy. They may contradict one another. They may occasionally make Thanksgiving dinner feel like an emotional hostage situation. But they also reveal something beautiful.

This person mattered in more than one way. They were known from more than one angle. They left fingerprints on many different lives.

So perhaps the goal isn’t to decide who remembers the ending correctly. Perhaps the goal is to honor that each of us walked away carrying something different because each of us loved something different about the same person.

The ending may never become one neat, agreed-upon story. Neither will grief.

But we can still hold our separate memories with tenderness. We can let one another tell the truth as we lived it. And we can remember that before there was an ending, there was an entire life.

That is the story worth continuing to tell.

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Technically, I suppose the words changed. I became the widowed daughter-in-law. Later, when I remarried, the labels became even more complicated.

But love doesn’t pay much attention to technicalities.

Neither does responsibility.

Life continued after Jack died because life has the audacity to do that. It keeps moving, keeps changing, and occasionally keeps throwing more crap at people who have already had more than their fair share.

Jack’s sister died.

Then his father died.

And suddenly, my mother-in-law, Suzanne, was living in a world where her husband and both of her children were gone.

Her entire immediate family—except for me and her only living grandchild, my daughter, Graci.

She has extended family. There are cousins and people who care about her. But the circle that once made up her everyday life has significantly dwindled.

And that kind of loss changes a person.

It changes how you see the future.

It changes how much energy you have to care for a house, open the mail, make decisions, manage appointments, and keep participating in a life that no longer looks anything like the one you were supposed to have.

Suzanne lives alone in a large house filled with the evidence of a family that used to be there.

That sentence alone carries more grief than I know how to explain.

Someone still has to handle everything

Grief can stop a person in their tracks, but the bills don’t stop.

The house still needs to be maintained.

Appointments still need to be scheduled. Paperwork still arrives. Financial decisions still have to be made. Groceries must be bought. Prescriptions need to be filled. Repairs happen. Forms need signatures. Life continues to produce passwords, phone calls, insurance questions, and envelopes marked IMPORTANT—because apparently grief wasn’t already providing enough paperwork.

Someone has to take care of it all.

For Suzanne, that someone has largely been me.

I help manage her finances and her living needs. I keep track of the things she either cannot manage alone or no longer has the emotional energy to care about. I step in because Graci is 24. She loves her grandmother deeply, but she doesn’t yet know how to handle all the complicated, grown-up pieces of someone else’s life.

Honestly, I’m not sure any of us truly know how. We simply learn because there is no one else standing in line to volunteer.

Sometimes I have wondered: Is this really my responsibility?

I was Jack’s wife. I am no longer her daughter-in-law in the traditional sense. I have remarried. I have a husband, a home, a business, a daughter, and a life that continued growing after Jack died.

But Suzanne is still family.

I love her.

So yes, it is my responsibility—not because a rulebook assigned it to me, but because love did.

That doesn’t mean it is easy.

Love and burden can exist in the same room. So can devotion and exhaustion. Caregiving can be something you willingly choose and something that completely overwhelms you.

Both can be true.

Grief can look like not caring anymore

We are now reaching another milestone.

We are moving Suzanne into an assisted living community.

It isn’t because she is completely unable to take care of herself. It is because, in many ways, she has stopped caring whether she does.

I don’t say that with judgment. I understand it.

When you have lost your husband and both of your children, it becomes difficult to believe there is anything left to build toward. Her grief has been deeply traumatic. She has survived loss after loss, but survival and living are not always the same thing.

She needs people.

She needs community.

She needs to hear voices in the hallway and see familiar faces at meals. She needs activities she can choose to attend and someone nearby if she needs help. She needs a life that doesn’t require her to maintain a huge house while surrounded by the quiet absence of everyone who once filled it.

The house has become too much for her.

The cleaning has become too much. The upkeep has become too much. The loneliness has become too much.

And watching it happen has become too much for me.

I know moving will bring another layer of grief for her.

She isn’t simply moving from a house into an apartment. She is leaving a life.

She is leaving rooms where her family gathered. She is sorting through objects that belonged to people she loved. She is closing the door on a chapter she never wanted to end.

A smaller space can feel like a smaller life, even when it may actually allow life to expand again.

I know this transition will be painful.

But I also believe it is necessary.

The relief no one wants to admit

Honestly, this move is also taking a tremendous weight off me.

And admitting that brings its own guilt.

I feel relieved knowing there will be people around her.

I feel relieved knowing someone else may notice if she hasn’t come to breakfast, isn’t feeling well, or needs help.

I feel relieved knowing the house will no longer be silently declining around her while I worry about what needs to be repaired, cleaned, handled, or prevented next.

I feel relieved that I will not be carrying all of this alone.

My husband, Chantz, has helped me. He has stepped into a situation he never created and accepted responsibilities that did not come from his own family. That kind of love deserves to be named.

Still, much of the mental and emotional weight has been mine.

The phone calls.

The decisions.

The worrying.

The constant awareness that if something needs to be handled, I am likely the person who will have to handle it.

So yes, I am relieved.

That does not mean I love Suzanne any less.

It does not mean I am abandoning her.

It means I have been carrying something heavy for a very long time, and someone has finally offered to hold one end.

Relief is not rejection.

Relief is not selfishness.

Relief is what happens when a caregiver realizes help may finally be coming.

Caregiving has its own grief

We often talk about caregiving as though it is made entirely of noble moments.

We talk about love, sacrifice, and showing up.

We don’t always talk about resentment, fatigue, guilt, fear, or the quiet wish that someone else would make the decision for once.

We don’t talk enough about what it feels like to take responsibility for a person whose needs are growing while you are also trying to live your own life.

And we rarely talk about the grief of watching someone slowly lose interest in the life they still have.

Caregiving is grief in motion.

It is grieving what someone used to be able to do.

It is grieving the home they can no longer manage.

It is grieving the independence they are afraid to lose.

It is grieving the family members who should have been here to help.

Sometimes I think about how different this would be if Jack were alive. Or if his sister were still here. Or if Suzanne’s husband were beside her.

There should be more people at this table.

But there aren’t.

That absence becomes its own kind of responsibility.

For those carrying what loss left behind

Maybe you are caring for an aging parent, grandparent, sibling, friend, or someone connected to a person you lost.

Maybe you became the responsible one without ever agreeing to the job.

Maybe everyone assumes you will handle things because you always have.

Maybe you love the person deeply and are still tired of being the one who remembers every appointment, pays every bill, answers every call, and solves every problem.

You are allowed to admit that it is hard.

You are allowed to need help.

You are allowed to feel relieved when help finally arrives.

You are allowed to grieve the changes even when you know they are necessary.

And you are allowed to love someone without being able to carry every part of their life by yourself.

We are moving Suzanne because we love her.

Because she deserves more than sitting alone inside a house filled with ghosts.

Because community cannot replace her husband or her children, but it may remind her that she is still part of the living.

And because caregiving should not require one person to slowly disappear beneath the weight of keeping another person afloat.

This next chapter will be hard.

It will be sad.

It may also be good.

That is the strange thing about grief: sometimes the right decision still breaks your heart.

And sometimes the sound of help arriving feels a lot like guilt—until you finally recognize it as relief.

Are you caring for someone while grieving, too? What part has been hardest to say out loud?

Dear Friend,

There are words I used to say without thinking. Words that rolled off my tongue as naturally as breathing: Tomorrow. Home. Family. How are you? Forever.

They were just words. Until grief happened.

Almost overnight, the language I had spoken my entire life began to change. Not because the dictionary changed, but because I did. Grief has a way of rewriting the meaning of ordinary things.

Take the question, “How are you?” Before loss, it was simple. A polite greeting. Something you answered without much thought. Now, it feels like one of the hardest questions in the world. Because how do you explain that your heart is carrying someone who isn’t standing beside you? How do you tell someone that you laughed this morning, and cried in the car an hour later? That you’re grateful for this beautiful life you’ve built, and still miss the one you lost with every fiber of your being?

So instead, we often smile. We offer little phrases that fit into polite conversation, but never quite tell the whole truth: “I’m good.” “I’m okay.” “I’m hanging in there.”

Even the word “home” changed for me. Sometimes grief changes your home long before it changes your address. The walls are the same. The furniture hasn’t moved. But the laughter is quieter. The chair at the table is empty. The familiar suddenly feels unfamiliar. You realize that home was never just a place. It was the people inside it. And when one of them is gone, the whole language of home changes too.

Then there is the phrase “moving on.” I’ve never loved those words. Moving on sounds like leaving them behind, but grief has taught me that we don’t move on from the people we love.

We move forward.

There’s a difference. Moving forward means carrying their love into every chapter that comes next. One lets go; the other holds on in a different way.

One of the words grief changed for me was “husband.” It sounds so simple until someone asks about him. Even now, years later and happily remarried, I still stumble over the words. When I’m talking about Jack, I instinctively want to say, “my husband.” Then I catch myself and add, “my late husband.”

Not because I love my husband now any less. But because Jack didn’t become my ex-husband when he died. That word has never sat right with me. An ex-husband is someone you separated from. Someone you chose to leave, or who chose to leave you. Death isn’t a divorce. Love doesn’t end because a heartbeat does.

Jack will always be my late husband. And Chantz is my husband. Somehow, grief made room for both truths to exist at the same time.

Then there was another tiny word I had to relearn: “We.”

After Jack died, I remember catching myself saying “we” when I meant “I.” “We love that restaurant.” “We’re thinking about taking a trip.” Only there wasn’t a “we” anymore. There was just me. I can’t even describe how lonely that little correction felt. One letter. One word. One life completely changed. It’s amazing how grief can turn the smallest words into the heaviest ones.

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The same is true for “closure.” I don’t think love was ever meant to have closure. Love doesn’t close. It changes. It grows quieter. It becomes memories instead of moments, but it never really ends.

Of course, there are also the words people offer with the very best intentions: “At least they aren’t suffering.” “At least you have other children.” “At least you had so many wonderful years.” But I’ve learned that grief rarely needs an at least. It just needs someone willing to sit in the middle of the sentence without trying to finish it for you.

Even “forever” has changed. Before grief, forever felt like a promise stretched out in front of me. Now, forever feels like love stretched across heaven and earth—a love that continues even though life looks different, a love that refuses to end simply because someone is no longer here.

Maybe that’s one of the quietest truths about this journey. Grief doesn’t just change your calendar. It doesn’t just change your address. It changes your language.

You begin speaking in memories. You measure time differently. You hear ordinary words with extraordinary weight.

And every once in a while, someone says something that finally captures what you’ve been feeling all along. Not because it fixes your pain, but because it reminds you that you aren’t the only one learning to speak this new language.

That’s why I keep writing these letters to you. Because every single one is my way of saying: If these words have changed for you too... I understand.

And maybe understanding is one of the most healing languages we will ever learn.

With grace and grit,
Angie

If you enjoyed this letter, you may also like:

• The Problem With Grief Is That It Changes Your Address

• The Problem With Grief Is That Nobody Else Can See Your Calendar

One of the strangest things about grief isn’t the sadness. It’s the beauty that comes afterward. That probably sounds like something no grieving person wants to hear—I know I wouldn’t have believed it either.

When my son Garret died, and when my husband Jack died, I couldn’t imagine laughing again. Planning for the future felt impossible. Joy felt like something that belonged entirely to other people.

But then...life kept unfolding. Not because I wanted it to, and not because I was “over it.” Simply because life has a quiet way of continuing, even when your heart wishes it would stop.

Years passed. My daughter grew up. I fell in love again, and I married Chantz. I started Butterflies + Halos, and I wrote a book I never imagined I’d write. I found purpose inside pain I never wanted. If you looked at my life today, you might call it beautiful. And you’d be right. It is.

But here’s the part almost no one talks about: Building a beautiful life after loss can be incredibly lonely. Because the more beautiful your life becomes, the more complicated your grief can feel. You find yourself wishing two completely different lives could somehow exist at the exact same time.

I wish Jack could see what Butterflies + Halos has become.
I wish Garret had grown into the young man I still imagine him to be.
I wish my old family and my new family could somehow sit around the same dinner table.

I know they can’t. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing.

Sometimes people assume that because you’re smiling, because you’re traveling, because you’re making plans and have found happiness again...that the grief must have faded. It hasn’t. It has simply learned how to coexist with joy. That is very different.

I no longer believe healing means leaving someone behind. I think healing means making room. Room for laughter, and room for tears. Room for old memories, and room for new traditions. Room for gratitude, and room for longing.

I’ve learned that love doesn’t divide; it expands. Loving my life today doesn’t mean I loved my old life any less. Loving Chantz doesn’t mean I stopped loving Jack. Celebrating today doesn’t erase yesterday. Both stories belong to me. Both families belong to me. Both versions of my heart are still here.

Maybe that’s why this journey can feel so lonely. People often expect grief to end, or happiness to replace it. But the truth is much more tender than that.

The happiest moments in my life still have empty chairs. The proudest accomplishments still have people I wish could witness them. The laughter is real—and so are the tears. They’ve simply learned to sit beside one another.

If you’ve ever felt guilty for laughing after loss...
If you’ve ever wondered whether moving forward meant leaving someone behind...
If you’ve ever looked around at the beautiful life you’ve built and still felt an ache for the one that never got to be...

I hope you know this: You are not doing grief wrong. You are doing something incredibly brave. You’re carrying yesterday while still choosing today.

And maybe...that’s what resilience really looks like. Not forgetting. Not replacing. Not moving on. But building something beautiful with pieces of a heart that still remembers.

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With gratitude,

Angie

P.S. If you are finding it hard to sit with these words on a screen today, or if you simply prefer a voice in your ear, I have recorded an audio version of this letter for the Grace & Grit podcast. You can listen to it right here on Substack, or find it on Apple and Spotify.

Whether you read these letters with your morning coffee or listen along on a quiet walk, I am so deeply grateful you are here.

You are never carrying these empty chairs alone.

If you would have told me a year ago that a little podcast recorded from my desk would be downloaded more than 10,400 times, I probably would have laughed.

Not because I didn’t believe in the message.

Because I didn’t think anyone would find it.

People often think you need expensive equipment, a huge social media following, or a big production team to start a podcast. My experience has been the opposite. Thirty-four simple conversations, recorded with the hope of helping one person at a time, have now been downloaded more than 10,400 times.

I simply had stories to tell...and people I hoped might need to hear them.

So I hit record.

Again.

And again.

Thirty-four times.

Each episode is only five to eight minutes long.

Just enough time to sit with a cup of coffee.
Take a walk around the block.
Fold a load of laundry.
Or catch your breath in the middle of a hard day.

Today I looked at my statistics.

And I had to look twice.

10,400 downloads.

Ten thousand.

Four hundred.

People.

That absolutely blows my mind.

Even more surprising?

One episode has completely taken on a life of its own.

“The Problem With Grief Is That Nobody Else Can See Your Calendar.”

As of today...

2,514 downloads.

Apparently I’m not the only one who has felt unseen in grief.

Apparently thousands of people needed those words.

Maybe that’s the lesson.

Sometimes the thing you almost don’t share...

is exactly the thing someone else has been waiting to hear.

One of the things I love most about Substack isn’t even the numbers.

It’s the people.

So much of the internet feels loud.

Competitive.

Angry.

Everyone trying to be the smartest person in the room.

Substack has felt different.

People come here to read.

To think.

To encourage.

To connect.

One of the unexpected gifts has been discovering the Substack community. So much of my growth has come organically from readers recommending my work to others. It reminds me that meaningful things still spread the old-fashioned way—one person telling another, 'I think this might help you.

One heart reaching another.

If you’ve listened...

Thank you.

If you’ve shared an episode...

Thank you.

If you’ve ever left a comment that made me realize someone understood exactly what I was trying to say...

Thank you.

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You helped build this far more than you probably realize.

And if you’re sitting on an idea...

A newsletter.

A podcast.

A book.

A business.

A dream that feels too small to matter...

Can I gently encourage you?

Don’t wait until you have the perfect microphone.

Or the perfect website.

Or the perfect strategy.

Start.

The first episode doesn’t have to change the world.

You just have to make the first one.

Because you never know.

Thirty-four episodes later...

You might look up and realize that 10,400 people have quietly pulled up a chair to listen.

And that, to me, is nothing short of incredible.

With gratitude,

Angie

P.S. If you’re new here and didn’t realize Grace & Grit Letters also has a podcast, every letter is available to listen to right here on Substack (or on Apple & Spotify). Most episodes are just 5–8 minutes long—perfect for your morning coffee, your commute, or a quiet walk.

Whether you prefer reading or listening, I’m so glad you’re here.

Subscribe now

More stories. More conversations. More hope.

If these little letters and conversations have encouraged you, I’d love for you to stay.

Dear friend,

Every year, sometime around July 1st, something inside me changes.

Not dramatically.

Not all at once.

It’s quieter than that.

It feels like the first deep breath after you’ve been holding it for weeks.

If you’ve lived with deep grief, you might know exactly what I mean.

Enjoying this letter?

If these words meet you where you are, I’d love to invite you to join me. Every week I share honest letters about grief, hope, and rebuilding a life after loss.

Subscribe to receive future letters

For me, June has always carried more weight than the other months. It holds my son Garret’s birthday. It holds the anniversary of the day he left this earth. Many years it has also held Father’s Day, a day that carries its own complicated mix of love and loss.

Those dates don’t simply appear on my calendar.

They settle into my body.

And every year, without even realizing it, I begin carrying them long before they arrive.

Life doesn’t stop, of course.

The emails still come.

The laundry still needs folding.

Orders still need to be packed.

People still need pieces of me.

From the outside, everything looks normal.

But inside...

It feels like I’m swimming inside a fishbowl.

I can see life happening all around me, but everything feels muffled.

Heavier.

Slower.

As if I’m trying to walk through water while everyone else is moving on dry land.

It’s one of those things that’s almost impossible to explain unless you’ve lived it yourself.

Then July arrives.

And something loosens.

Not my love.

Never my love.

Not even my grief.

But the grip it has on my nervous system.

I breathe differently.

I sleep a little easier.

Ideas begin to return.

I find myself reaching for my journal again.

My creativity quietly knocks on the door.

And I remember something grief has spent twenty years teaching me.

Grief has seasons.

People often say grief comes in waves.

I think that’s true.

But I’ve come to believe it also arrives in seasons.

There are seasons when we build.

Seasons when we dream.

Seasons when we laugh more than we cry.

And there are seasons when our only job is to carry love.

Quietly.

Faithfully.

Without apologizing for how heavy it feels.

For years, I fought those seasons.

I thought healing meant pushing through.

Creating anyway.

Checking every box.

Staying productive no matter what my heart was carrying.

Now I know better.

This year, I had three greeting cards sitting on my computer.

Finished.

Designed.

Ready to be released.

They waited.

Not because I was lazy.

Not because I wasn’t inspired.

Because I wasn’t ready.

For the first time, I didn’t shame myself for that.

I let them wait.

And somewhere along the way I realized something that surprised me.

Maybe grief wasn’t getting in my way.

Maybe grief was simply asking me to honor the season I was in.

That thought has stayed with me.

Because how often do we assume we’re falling behind...

When maybe we’re simply being invited to rest?

How often do we compare someone else’s springtime to our winter?

How often do we expect ourselves to bloom while we’re still tending roots no one else can see?

The older I get, the less interested I am in forcing growth.

I want the kind that comes honestly.

The kind that has survived storms.

The kind that doesn’t need to prove itself.

Maybe your “July” doesn’t actually happen in July.

Maybe yours comes after the holidays.

Or after a birthday.

Or on an ordinary Tuesday when you suddenly realize you laughed without feeling guilty.

Maybe it’s the first time you make plans for next month.

Or buy flowers.

Or hear their favorite song and smile before you cry.

Whatever your season looks like...

Trust it.

You don’t have to rush into someone else’s summer.

You don’t have to bloom because the calendar says you should.

Healing has never followed a schedule.

It follows the heart.

As for me...

I’m grateful July has arrived.

I’m grateful to feel the fog beginning to lift.

I’m grateful that my hands are creating again.

Not because grief is gone.

But because, somehow, it has made room for hope to sit beside it.

And maybe that’s what this mid-year shift really is.

Not becoming someone different.

Just becoming yourself again.

One quiet breath at a time.

Until next season...

With love and hope,

Angie

Don’t miss the next letter.

This is the beginning of a new series called The Seasons of Grief, where we’ll explore how love, loss, and hope change through every season of life.

If you’d like the next letter delivered straight to your inbox, I’d love to have you join us.

Receive the next letter.

P.S.

I’d love to know...

Does your grief have seasons?

Is there a month that feels heavier than the others? Or one that feels like the first breath after holding it for far too long?

I’d love to meet you in the comments.

Grief doesn’t just break your heart.

It quietly changes your address.

Not the one your mail gets delivered to.

The one your soul lives at.

One day you wake up and realize you’re no longer living in the life you once knew.

Your house may be the same.

Your job hasn’t changed.

Your friends are still in your phone.

Your favorite coffee shop still knows your order.

From the outside, everything looks familiar.

But inside?

You’ve moved.

You now live in a place where dates carry more weight than days.

Where birthdays aren’t just birthdays.

Where ordinary Tuesdays can suddenly become unbearable because twenty years ago on an ordinary Tuesday, your entire world changed.

You live where a song can reroute your entire afternoon.

Where the smell of sunscreen reminds you of summers that never got to happen.

Where a tiny pair of shoes in a store can steal your breath before you’ve even realized why.

You live in a neighborhood where joy and sorrow aren’t enemies.

They’re neighbors.

They wave to each other from across the street every single day.

One moment you’re laughing so hard your stomach hurts.

The next, you’re sitting in your car wiping away tears because you heard that song.

People who haven’t lived here often don’t understand.

Not because they don’t care.

But because they don’t know this address exists.

They assume you’ve moved on because they’ve moved forward.

They wonder why anniversaries still matter.

Why birthdays still sting.

Why certain months seem heavier than others.

They don’t realize that in the world of grief, time isn’t measured the same way anymore.

It’s measured in “before.”

And “after.”

Sometimes they’ll tell you they miss the old you.

The truth is...

So do you.

You miss the version of yourself who believed life made sense.

Who assumed tomorrow was promised.

Who never imagined memorizing the date your world fell apart.

Grief doesn’t just ask you to miss someone.

It asks you to become someone new.

A person who carries both unbearable loss and unbelievable love.

A person who can celebrate and mourn in the very same breath.

A person who learns that healing doesn’t mean leaving someone behind.

It means learning how to carry them differently.

The hardest part of this new address isn’t living here.

It’s wondering if anyone else knows how to find you.

If you've found yourself living at this address too, I'd love to walk alongside you.

Subscribe now

Some days it feels like you’re standing on the front porch of a house no one visits.

People wave from a distance.

They send the occasional text.

They mean well.

But they don’t quite know how to walk up the path and sit beside you.

I don’t blame them.

I wouldn’t have known this place existed either.

Not before Garret.

Not before Jack.

Not before grief handed me a new set of keys and quietly whispered, “This is where you’ll live now.”

It’s not where I wanted to be.

But over the years, I’ve discovered something beautiful.

There are neighbors here.

Not the kind who borrow sugar or mow your lawn.

The kind who recognize the look in your eyes before you’ve said a single word.

The grieving mother who quietly reaches for your hand.

The widow who nods because she understands.

The friend who’s walked through loss and doesn’t rush your healing.

The stranger who says, “Me too.”

We find each other.

We don’t need directions.

We already know the way.

And maybe that’s what hope looks like after loss.

Not moving back to the life we once had.

Not pretending this address doesn’t exist.

But slowly making a home here.

Planting flowers in the places we thought nothing could ever grow again.

Leaving the porch light on for the next grieving heart who wanders down this road, wondering if they’re the only one living here.

They’re not.

Neither are you.

Grief changed my address. Love is what keeps making it feel like home.

Twenty years.

I stared at those words this morning, waiting for them to make sense.

They still don’t.

Twenty years ago, I kissed your soft cheeks, held your tiny hands, and whispered goodbye to a little boy who had only been here for one year.

Today, I’ve spent more of my life missing you than I had the privilege of raising you.

That’s a sentence I never imagined I would write.

When you first went to Heaven, people told me time would help.

I know they meant well.

But they didn’t understand that time doesn’t lessen a mother’s love.

It simply gives that love more places to live.

You live in my heart now.

You live in every butterfly that still catches my eye.

You live in every grieving parent I have the honor of sitting beside.

You live in every card I create, every book I write, every conversation I have with someone who believes they can’t survive another day.

You have no idea how many people know your name.

Or maybe you do.

Maybe Heaven lets you peek.

I hope so.

I hope you know that your one beautiful year has changed thousands of lives.

You were my first lesson in unconditional love.

You became my greatest lesson in resilience.

Not because losing you made me stronger.

I still don’t like when people say that.

Losing you broke me.

But God met me there.

Piece by piece, He taught me that broken things can still become beautiful.

Not because the cracks disappear.

Because His light has a way of finding them.

Sometimes I wonder what you’d be doing now.

Would you be taller than me?

Would you have inherited your daddy’s laugh?

Would you still let me hug you, or would you pull away with that embarrassed smile teenage boys have?

Would you roll your eyes when I took too many pictures?

Those questions used to make me cry.

Sometimes they still do.

But today...

Today they make me smile, too.

Because wondering about you means you’ve never stopped being part of my life.

People often ask if I still grieve after twenty years.

The answer is yes.

Not because I’m trapped in the past.

Because I love you in the present.

There is a difference.

I’ve laughed these last twenty years.

I’ve fallen in love again.

I’ve watched your sister grow into an incredible young woman.

I’ve built a business because of you.

I’ve become an author.

A grief educator.

A woman I don’t think I could have imagined twenty years ago.

None of those things happened instead of loving you.

They happened because loving you changed me forever.

If there’s one thing you’ve taught me, it’s this:

Love doesn’t end because life changes.

It simply changes how it shows up.

And every June, it finds me all over again.

Do you know something I’ve never told you?

For years, I hated June.

I hated watching everyone celebrate sunshine while I counted another year without you.

But somewhere along the way, June became something else.

It’s still the month I lost you.

It’s also the month Butterflies + Halos was born.

The month I published my first book.

The month I celebrate dreams I once thought had died with you.

I think that’s one of God’s sweetest miracles.

He didn’t erase my sorrow.

He planted hope beside it.

Both still bloom every June.

And somehow...

they don’t compete.

That’s what twenty years has taught me.

Grief and joy are not enemies.

They are companions.

They walk beside each other.

Just like you’ve walked beside me all these years.

I miss you, sweetheart.

I always will.

But I no longer measure my life by what I lost.

I measure it by the love you’ve continued to give me.

Thank you for making me your mom.

It has been the greatest honor of my life.

Forever one.

Forever loved.

Love,

Mom

To the parents reading this...

If today is your own angelversary, whether it’s one year or twenty, I hope you know this:

You don’t have to stop loving them to keep living.

You don’t have to choose between remembering them and embracing the life still in front of you.

Carry them.

Talk about them.

Laugh because of them.

Cry because of them.

Build because of them.

Love because of them.

Our children don’t ask us to stop living.

If anything, I believe they quietly cheer us on.

Twenty years later, I still carry my little boy.

And somehow...

he’s still carrying me, too.

With love,

Angie

One of the most frustrating things about grief is that nobody else can see your calendar.

Not your actual calendar.

Your grief calendar.

The one you carry around in your head.

The one filled with birthdays, death dates, diagnoses, anniversaries, hospital visits, phone calls, and moments that changed your life forever.

Everyone else is busy planning vacations.

You’re wondering if you can survive next Thursday.

Everyone else sees June.

You see that June.

Everyone else sees Father’s Day.

You see a son who should be here.

Everyone else sees a random Tuesday.

You remember exactly what happened on that Tuesday twenty years ago.

The strange thing is, nobody means any harm.

Most people aren’t forgetting.

They simply aren’t carrying the same calendar.

If I can be honest, sometimes we secretly want them to.

We want someone else to walk into the room and say:

“I know what day it is.”

Not because we need a parade.

Not because we need the world to stop spinning.

Just because it feels exhausting being the keeper of the memories.

The historian.

The one responsible for remembering.

The one carrying dates that nobody else writes down anymore.

I think that’s one of the loneliest parts of long-term grief.

Not the missing.

The remembering.

Because twenty years later, people assume you’ve adjusted.

And in many ways, you have.

You laugh.

You travel.

You build a life.

You create new memories.

You even experience joy again.

But underneath all of that, there’s still a calendar running quietly in the background.

Always.

Every grieving person I know has one.

The date nobody else remembers.

The milestone nobody else sees coming.

The week that suddenly feels heavier for reasons they can’t explain.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Most people aren’t forgetting our loved ones.

They’re simply living in a story that kept moving.

While we became the guardians of a chapter they never had to memorize.

That realization has softened me.

Not completely.

I’m still human.

I still occasionally want to shake people by the shoulders and yell, “HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT DAY THIS IS?”

But I’ve learned something important.

Their forgetting is usually not a measure of their love.

It’s a measure of their distance from the loss.

Those are not the same thing.

So when those invisible dates show up, I’ve stopped waiting for other people to acknowledge them.

I acknowledge them.

I light the candle.

I tell the story.

I say the name.

I buy the cupcake.

I visit the grave.

I take the walk.

I do whatever helps me honor the life that mattered.

Because grief has taught me something surprising:

The responsibility of remembering isn’t a burden.

It’s a privilege.

A heartbreaking privilege, yes.

But a privilege nonetheless.

And while nobody else can see my calendar...

I can.

And that’s enough.

Most days, anyway.

The other days, I reserve the right to roll my eyes dramatically and eat dessert first.

Grace and grit, friends.

Both are required.

As Garret’s 21st birthday approaches, I’ve found myself wrestling with something I don’t know how to explain to the people around me.

Not because they don’t care. Most of them do.

Not because they aren’t supportive. They are.

But because there are some experiences in life that can only be understood by the people who lived them beside you.

Twenty-one.

Twenty years gone.

Those numbers have been sitting heavily on my heart lately.

For most people, June is simply another month on the calendar. Summer plans are being made. Father’s Day is approaching. People are scheduling barbecues, vacations, and weekends at the lake. Life continues to move forward exactly as it should.

And yet, every year when June arrives, I find myself standing in two worlds at once.

There is the life I have now—the one I have worked hard to build after unimaginable loss. The life filled with new memories, new traditions, new relationships, and people who love me deeply.

Then there is the life that existed before.

The life where Garret was here.

The life where Jack was here.

The life where our future looked entirely different than the one that unfolded.

The older I get, the more I realize that one of the hardest parts of grief isn’t just missing the person who died.

It’s missing the people who remember them the way you do.

Lately, I’ve been missing Jack in a way that feels different than usual.

Not because I wish my current life were different.

Not because I haven’t found happiness again.

But because Jack was the only other person who knew exactly what these milestones meant.

He was Garret’s dad.

He was the only person who knew what it felt like to hold our son, dream about his future, and imagine the man he would become.

When Garret died, we carried that grief together.

We wondered together.

We remembered together.

We asked all the impossible questions together.

Would he have played sports?

Would he have gone to college?

Would he have been tall like his dad?

What would his laugh sound like today?

Now those questions belong mostly to me.

Graci was so young when Garret died. She knows his story. She loves her brother. She understands his importance in our family.

But she doesn’t carry the memories.

She couldn’t.

She was simply too little.

And so, as the years pass, I sometimes find myself feeling like the keeper of something precious that fewer and fewer people can truly see.

I carry memories that exist nowhere else.

I carry stories that only a handful of people remember.

I carry a version of our family that disappeared long ago.

There is a loneliness in that.

A quiet loneliness that has nothing to do with being surrounded by people.

I am surrounded by wonderful people.

The loneliness comes from knowing that nobody else feels June the way I do.

Nobody else’s heart begins counting the days to Garret’s birthday.

Nobody else automatically notices that this would have been his 20th year.

Nobody else feels the significance of twenty years gone and twenty-one years imagined.

And how could they?

Their lives kept moving.

Mine did too.

At least on the outside.

But grief has a strange relationship with time.

For those who have never experienced profound loss, time often feels linear. One year becomes five. Five becomes ten. Ten becomes twenty.

For those of us whose worlds stopped in an instant, time feels different.

Part of you moves forward.

Part of you stays behind.

Part of you learns how to laugh again.

Part of you remains forever connected to the moment everything changed.

Twenty years later, I can tell you that grief softens.

It changes shape.

It becomes more familiar.

But it never completely leaves.

Especially during milestone years.

Especially when your child should be turning twenty-one.

Especially when the person who would have understood your heartbreak isn’t here either.

What I find myself struggling with this year is figuring out how to honor Garret while also honoring the life I’ve built.

I don’t think people talk enough about this part.

The balancing act of loving the people who are gone while fully loving the people who are here.

The tension between remembering and living.

The challenge of wanting space for reflection when everyone else simply sees another date on the calendar.

Father’s Day falls on Garret’s birthday this year.

People want to celebrate.

People want to gather.

People want to make plans.

And I find myself wondering how to explain that I may not want to participate.

Or that I might participate differently.

That I might attend part of an event but not stay for the celebration afterward.

That I might need quiet instead of company.

Reflection instead of distraction.

Not because I’m sad.

Not because I’m ungrateful.

But because some days deserve space.

Some dates deserve to be felt.

Some memories deserve more than squeezing them into the margins of an already busy day.

The truth is, I am still figuring this out.

I am still learning how to integrate the mother I was, the wife I was, and the woman I am today.

I am still learning how to honor Garret’s life without feeling guilty for living mine.

I am still learning that I don’t need permission to step away, reflect, remember, or grieve.

Maybe that’s what this season is teaching me.

That I don’t have to choose between my past and my present.

I can love them both.

I can celebrate the life I’ve built while still honoring the life I lost.

I can show up when it feels right and step back when it doesn’t.

And perhaps most importantly, I can stop trying to explain the significance of these dates to people who have never lived them.

Because the people who understand won’t need an explanation.

And the people who don’t aren’t failing me.

They’re simply fortunate enough to have never watched their world stop turning.

Twenty years later, mine is moving again.

But some days, especially in June, I still feel the place where it broke.

And maybe that isn’t something to fix.

Maybe it’s simply another way of loving someone who should still be here.

After years of carrying stories in my heart, replaying memories in my mind, crying over keyboards, deleting paragraphs, rewriting chapters, and wondering if anyone would ever need the words I was writing, I finally held my book in my hands.

Chapters of a Resilient Heart.

My story.

And in many ways, our story.

A dream that had quietly lived inside me for years became something real.

And if I’m being completely honest, publishing a book wasn’t just about becoming an author.

It was about becoming brave enough to tell the truth.

And then there was the moment itself.

The moment the box arrived.

The moment I sliced through the tape.

The moment I held my book for the very first time.

Not a manuscript.

Not a draft.

Not a file on a computer.

A real book.

A story that had lived inside me for years now sitting in my hands.

I cried.

Not because I had become an author.

But because I had kept a promise to myself.

A promise that one day these stories would leave my heart and find their way into the world.

People often think writing a book is about words.

It’s not.

It’s about vulnerability.

It’s about opening old wounds long enough to explain how they healed.

It’s about revisiting moments you thought you had neatly packed away, only to discover they still have something to teach you.

Every chapter of my book carries pieces of my life.

The beginning of motherhood.

The unimaginable ending of life as I knew it when my son Garret died.

The heartbreak of watching Jack fight cancer and becoming a widow at age 36.

The grief of losing my brother.

The questions that had no answers.

The anger I didn’t know where to place.

The faith that sometimes felt as thin as a thread.

And the hope that somehow refused to leave.

Because grief has a strange way of teaching you that beginnings and endings often occupy the same space.

The day something ends is often the day something else begins.

Not because we want it to.

Not because we’re ready.

But because life keeps moving, even when our hearts want to stand still.

One thing I didn’t fully realize while writing was that this book wasn’t just about me.

It became a place to remember people.

Not just the ones whose deaths changed the course of my life, but the family members whose stories deserved to be carried forward.

My sister-in-law Brooke.

My father-in-law Gary.

The people who helped shape our family, our memories, and the chapters that came before and after loss.

Because that’s one of the greatest gifts of storytelling.

When we tell the stories of those we love, we keep them present.

We keep them part of the conversation.

We remind the world that they were here, that they mattered, and that their lives continue to ripple through the people who loved them.

When I started writing this book, I thought I was documenting loss.

What I discovered was that I was documenting resilience.

Not the shiny kind people post on motivational posters.

The real kind.

The kind that gets out of bed when it doesn’t want to.

The kind that learns to breathe again after having the wind knocked out of it.

The kind that chooses faith when answers never arrive.

The kind that laughs again and then feels guilty for laughing.

The kind that keeps going because there are people depending on you, even when you’re not sure you can keep carrying yourself.

That kind.

One of the greatest surprises of my life is that my story didn’t end with loss.

For a long time, I thought it might.

When you lose a child, a husband, and a brother within such a short span of time, it can feel like every chapter ahead has already been written.

But life had more pages for me.

God had more pages for me.

There were friendships I hadn’t met yet.

Dreams I hadn’t dreamed yet.

A business called Butterflies + Halos waiting to be born.

Readers I hadn’t connected with yet.

Stages I hadn’t stood on.

People I hadn’t encouraged.

And yes...

Love I hadn’t found yet.

A second chance.

Not a replacement.

Not a redo.

A second chance.

A reminder that broken hearts can still expand.

That grief and joy can sit side by side.

That loving again doesn’t erase who came before.

It honors the fact that love taught us how.

If there’s one thing becoming an author taught me, it’s this:

Our stories matter.

Not because they’re perfect.

Not because they have neat endings.

But because someone else may be sitting in the middle of their hardest chapter, wondering if they’ll survive it.

Sometimes all they need is proof that survival is possible.

Not easy.

Not pretty.

But possible.

That’s what I hope Chapters of a Resilient Heart offers.

Not answers.

Hope.

Not perfection.

Permission.

Not a roadmap.

A hand to hold while you find your own way.

As I look back on June 2024, I don’t just see a book.

I see every version of myself that helped write it.

The young mom holding her baby.

The grieving mother burying her son.

The wife sitting beside hospital beds.

The widow trying to imagine a future.

The woman rebuilding a life she never asked to rebuild.

The entrepreneur starting a business from pain and purpose.

The author who finally believed her story mattered enough to share.

They’re all in these pages.

And somehow, they’re all still becoming.

Because that’s the beautiful thing about life.

The story isn’t over.

And maybe that’s the lesson hidden inside these pages.

This book is about grief, faith, resilience, love, and second chances...

It’s about making sure the people we love aren’t reduced to dates on a calendar or names etched on a stone.

It’s about keeping their stories alive.

Because as long as we remember them, speak their names, and share the impact they made on our lives, a piece of them continues to walk beside us.

There are still chapters left to write.

And if my journey has taught me anything, it’s that even after the hardest endings, hope has a way of finding the pen.

The Story Continues...

June 2024 was the month a dream became reality.

If you’ve ever wondered what resilience looks like in real life—not the polished version, but the messy, faithful, hopeful version—I invite you to read the story behind these chapters.

Get Your Copy today

❤️

What dream have you been carrying that still deserves a chapter of its own?

Some months arrive quietly.

June is not one of them.

For me, June arrives before the calendar ever turns. It settles into my chest weeks beforehand. It shows up in little moments when I least expect it. A date catches my eye. A memory surfaces. A song plays. And suddenly, I’m reminded that this month carries pieces of my story that have shaped everything that came after.

This June marks what would have been my son Garret’s 21st birthday.

His golden birthday.

And on June 27th, it will be 20 years since he left this earth.

Twenty years.

Even writing that feels strange.

Because grief does something funny with time. It can make twenty years feel like yesterday and yesterday feel like twenty years ago.

I remember the early years when every milestone felt impossible.

The first birthday.

The first Christmas.

The first anniversary.

The first time the world seemed to move forward while I was still standing in the rubble.

Back then, I thought healing meant grief would get smaller.

What I’ve learned instead is that grief changes shape.

Love changes shape too.

But neither one disappears.

People sometimes ask how I still talk about Garret after all these years.

My answer is simple.

Because he’s still my son.

Time doesn’t change that.

I didn’t stop being his mom because the calendar kept turning.

If anything, I’ve learned that one of the greatest gifts we can give the people we’ve lost is refusing to stop saying their names.

Garret.

There it is.

His name belongs in the room.

His life mattered.

His story mattered.

And the love I have for him didn’t end twenty years ago.

It simply had to find a different place to go.

I think that’s part of why Butterflies + Halos exists.

People often assume I started a greeting card business because I love cards.

And I do.

But the deeper truth is that I started writing because grief showed me how desperately people want to feel seen.

How often they sit alone with heartbreak while everyone around them searches for the perfect words.

How many grieving people quietly wonder if anyone remembers.

So I started creating the words I wish more people would say.

The honest words.

The awkward words.

The comforting words.

The “I don’t know what to do, but I’m here” words.

Because sometimes presence matters more than perfection.

Actually, most of the time it does.

Over the years, I’ve found my own ways to keep Garret’s memory alive.

Sometimes it’s through stories.

Sometimes it’s through photographs.

Sometimes it’s through tears.

Sometimes it’s through laughter.

And sometimes it’s through creating things that help other people survive what they never wanted to face.

That’s really what hope has become for me.

Not the absence of grief.

Not moving on.

Not pretending everything worked out the way I wanted.

Hope is learning that love continues even after loss.

Hope is carrying someone forward.

Hope is choosing to build something beautiful from something that broke your heart.

And maybe that’s why June feels both heavy and sacred.

Because every year it reminds me of two things:

How deeply I loved.

And how deeply I was loved.

If you’re carrying someone with you this month, I hope you’ll give yourself permission to say their name.

Tell their stories.

Light the candle.

Look through the photos.

Share the memory.

Laugh when something funny comes to mind.

Cry if you need to.

There is no expiration date on love.

And there is certainly no expiration date on remembrance.

Twenty years later, I still say his name.

Garret.

And I always will.

With grace and grit,

Angie

"If this letter resonated with you, feel free to share it with someone carrying grief too. You never know who may need the reminder that love continues."

There was a time when friendship felt less scheduled.

We sat in lawn chairs while kids ran through sprinklers. We stood in kitchens talking long after the dishes were done. We stayed on the phone until one of us said, “Okay, I should let you go...” and somehow that meant another twenty minutes.

Conversations wandered.

Time lingered.

Friendship wasn’t another thing on the to-do list.

Lately I’ve found myself thinking about that a lot.

Maybe it’s because our kids have grown up and we no longer have the built-in reasons to gather. No ball games. No school events. No standing around in parking lots solving life’s problems while waiting for practice to end.

Maybe it’s just adulthood.

Maybe it’s this world we live in now where everyone is carrying work, responsibilities, aging parents, grandkids, notifications, exhaustion, and brains running fifty tabs at once.

I understand being busy.

Trust me, I get it.

I’m busy too.

I have things going on too.

I have a business, responsibilities, life things, dreams I’m chasing, people I love, and a thousand things sitting in my brain before my feet even hit the floor in the morning.

So this isn’t coming from a place of “people should stop their lives for me.”

It’s coming from a place of wondering:

When did connection become something we squeeze in?

Because sometimes it feels like this:

You ask someone if they want to get together.

“Oh, things are crazy right now.”

Then a week later they reach out and say:

“I can do Tuesday from 1:00–3:00, but I have to leave exactly at 3:00.”

And you sit there thinking...

Wait...am I asking for too much?

Not because you need hours.

Not because you’re needy.

But because somewhere along the way you started missing something deeper.

I don’t think I’m missing people.

I think I’m missing presence.

I’m missing friendships where nobody was watching the clock.

Where conversations weren’t interrupted every seven minutes.

Where nobody felt like they had one foot out the door.

I’m missing being deeply known without having to schedule it.

And before anyone thinks this is me saying people don’t care—I don’t believe that at all.

I think people do care.

I think they care deeply.

I just think people want different things.

Some people want quick coffee dates.

Some people want occasional check-ins.

Some people feel connected through texts.

And some of us...some of us miss sitting on the deck with coffee that’s gone cold because we got lost in conversation.

Some of us still crave lingering.

Maybe grief changed that for me.

Because loss has a funny way of rearranging your priorities.

It teaches you that time isn’t promised.

It teaches you that someday you would give anything for one more conversation, one more hour, one more sit here and tell me everything.

So maybe I make time because I care.
Not because I’m less busy.
Because I know what it feels like when time runs out.

Maybe friendship isn’t disappearing.

Maybe it’s changing shape.

Maybe the answer isn’t trying to fit ourselves into every rushed connection.

Maybe it’s finding the people who still love to linger.

The ones who ask one more question.

The ones who sit a little longer.

The ones who make you feel like presence still exists.

And maybe those friendships become even more meaningful because they’re harder to find.

And maybe that’s the real question:

Not “Why aren’t people making time for me?”

But...

Who else quietly misses friendships that felt less rushed and more like home?

P.S. If you’re my friend and we haven’t had a long talk in a while, this isn’t me subtweeting you. I promise. But maybe we should grab coffee and ignore the clock for a bit.

“Grief teaches you two things: what matters and who shows up.
Both lists can be surprising.”

I wrote that in a matter of seconds.

But if I’m honest…
it took years to understand.

Because grief doesn’t just break your heart.
It rearranges your entire life without asking permission first.

It changes what you care about.
It changes what you tolerate.
And maybe most unexpectedly of all…
it changes how you see people.

Before loss, I think many of us move through life believing certain things matter more than they actually do.

We stress over appearances.
Over timelines.
Over keeping everyone happy.
Over things that feel urgent until life reminds us what truly is.

And grief has a way of stripping all of that down to the studs.

Suddenly, you realize how little small talk matters when your world is falling apart.

You realize how precious time is.
How sacred presence is.
How valuable honesty becomes.

You stop craving surface-level relationships and start longing for depth.
For realness.
For people who can sit in the uncomfortable without trying to rush you out of it.

Loss has a way of clearing out the unnecessary.

It becomes a brutal editor of priorities.

And then there are the people.

Whew.

No one really prepares you for that part.

Because grief doesn’t just reveal your pain…
it reveals your people.

Some people you thought would stay forever quietly drift away.

Not always because they’re cruel.
Sometimes because they’re uncomfortable.
Sometimes because they don’t know what to say.
Sometimes because your grief reminds them life can change in an instant, and that reality feels too heavy to hold.

Still… it hurts.

It hurts when the people you expected to show up the loudest become silent.

It hurts when friendships shift.
When invitations stop coming.
When your pain becomes too inconvenient for people who only knew how to love you in lighter seasons.

Grief has a way of teaching you who can hold space… and who can only hold conversations.

That lesson alone can change you.

But then something unexpected happens too.

The quiet people show up.

The ones you didn’t necessarily predict.

The acquaintance who checks in every anniversary.
The friend who remembers your person’s name.
The one who sends a simple “thinking of you” text without needing a response.
The people who don’t try to fix your grief… they just sit beside it.

Those people become sacred.

Because when your life falls apart, you stop measuring relationships by popularity or history.

You start measuring them by presence.

Who stayed?
Who remembered?
Who made space for your pain without making you feel guilty for carrying it?

Those are the people grief teaches you to hold onto.

And honestly?
Grief also changes how you show up for others.

Once you’ve lived through devastating loss, you begin to notice pain differently.

You remember the dates.
You send the text.
You sit longer in hard conversations.
You stop trying to tie everything up with silver ribbons and neat little phrases.

Because you know some wounds don’t need solutions.
They need witnesses.

That may be one of the hardest and most beautiful things grief teaches us.

Not just what matters…

But how to matter.

And while I wish so many of us never had to learn these lessons the hard way, I will say this:

The people who stay soft with you during grief?
The people who continue saying your loved one’s name?
The people who let you be fully honest about your pain without trying to edit it?

Those are your people.

Not the loudest ones.
Not the most performative ones.
Not always even the ones you expected.

Just the real ones.

And grief, strangely enough, becomes the thing that finally helps you see them clearly.

Yes, you.

The one who feels a lump in your throat when you see the flowers lined up at the store…
The one who scrolls past the brunch photos a little faster than usual…
The one who smiles for others, but carries something heavier underneath.

This letter is for you.

For the mother who had to say goodbye far too soon—
You are still a mother.
Not “were.” Not “almost.” Not “used to be.”
You are a mother in the deepest, fiercest, most forever kind of way.

Love like yours doesn’t disappear just because the world can’t see where it lands anymore.

For the daughter who no longer has her mom to call—
You are still her girl.
Still shaped by her voice, her laugh, her way of doing things.
Still carrying pieces of her in the way you love, the way you show up, the way you keep going.

Death may have changed your relationship…
But it did not erase it.

For the woman who longed to be a mother, but life had other plans—
Your grief is real.
Your longing is sacred.
And your capacity to love? Still overflowing, still worthy, still seen.

Motherhood is not only defined by what the world can measure.
Sometimes it lives quietly in the spaces no one applauds.

And for all the in-between places—
The strained relationships.
The complicated stories.
The roles you had to take on too soon…or never got to fully step into.

You are not forgotten here.

Mother’s Day can be beautiful.
And it can be brutal.
Sometimes, it’s both in the same breath.

So if today feels heavy, you don’t need to fix it.
You don’t need to force gratitude or wrap your grief in a bow.

You are allowed to feel what you feel.

But I want you to know this—

You are seen.
Not in a passing, polite way…
But in a deep, soul-level, I recognize that ache in you kind of way.

Your love still matters.
Your story still counts.
Your person—your child, your mom, your dream—is still part of you.

Always.

So today, if the world feels loud with celebration…
You are allowed to move quietly.

Light the candle.
Say their name.
Hold the memory.
Or simply sit and breathe through the waves as they come.

There is no wrong way to carry love like this.

And just in case no one has said it to you in a way that truly lands—

You are still a mother.
You are still a daughter.
You are still deeply, undeniably loved.

And you always will be.

With you, in all of it,
Angie 🤍

There are some titles in life that don’t come with an expiration date.

“Mom” is one of them.

I became Garret’s mom the moment he entered this world…
and I didn’t stop being his mom the day he left it.

That’s something grief has taught me—
not gently, not kindly…but truthfully.

Graci made me a mom first.
She was my first breath of motherhood…my first “I can’t believe this is mine.”

And then came Garret—
who expanded that love in ways I never saw coming.
Who changed me, shaped me, and left a mark on my soul that time can’t touch.

And oh, how I wish you could have known him.

His life was short, but it was real.
He mattered.
He still matters.

I find myself wondering about him in the quiet moments—
Who would he be today?
What would make him laugh?
Would he be tall like his dad?
Would he roll his eyes at me or still reach for my hand?

Grief has a way of stretching your imagination into places your arms can’t reach.

And yet…I go there anyway.
Because loving him didn’t end.

It just changed shape.

And then there’s Graci.

My sweet girl.
My living, breathing reminder that life can still grow in the same heart that carries loss.

Loving her is one of the greatest honors of my life.
And if I’m being honest…it’s also where grief gets complicated.

Because joy and sorrow don’t take turns.
They sit side by side.

I celebrate her…while quietly grieving who isn’t here to celebrate beside us.
I watch her grow…while wondering what that would look like for Garret.
I laugh with her…and sometimes, in the very same breath, feel the ache of what’s missing.

That’s the bittersweet no one prepares you for.

But here’s what I know—

I am not less of a mother because one of my children isn’t here.
And I am not ungrateful for the child I still get to hold just because I miss the one I can’t.

Both things can exist.

Both things do exist.

I am Garret’s mom.
I am Graci’s mom.

One I hold in my arms.
One I hold in my heart.

And both have shaped me into the woman I am today.

So today, I choose to honor all of it.

The love that began with Garret.
The life I get to live with Graci.
The questions, the memories, the laughter, the tears…

All of it belongs.

And if you’re reading this as a loss mom too…

I see you.

I see the way you carry both worlds.
The way you show up, even when it’s hard.
The way you keep loving a child the world no longer sees.

You are still their mom.

Always.

Garret made me a mom.
Graci reminds me I still am one.

And I will spend the rest of my life honoring both.

With love,
Angie 🤍

You know the kind of room I mean.

A place filled with smart women, bold promises, strategy sessions, bright graphics, motivational language, and the steady hum of people becoming “more.” More visible. More successful. More connected. More known.

And to be fair, some of that was true.

I learned things there. I met good people there. I made friendships I genuinely valued. I was grateful for the season.

But when my membership ended, something else became clear.

Some connections were tied to the container.

Some support was tied to access.

Some community was only community while the monthly payment cleared.

That realization stung more than I expected.

Not because anyone owed me anything. They didn’t.

But because many of us walk into rooms hoping for more than tactics. We hope for belonging. We hope to be known. We hope that if we show up sincerely, something lasting will grow.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

And sometimes the room simply wasn’t built for the kind of work you carry.

That was the deeper truth I had to face.

My work lives in grief.

Not in the polished version of grief people post once a year with a candle emoji and a quote about heaven.

I mean the real grief.

The middle-of-the-night grief.
The can’t-focus grief.
The empty-chair grief.
The birthday-without-them grief.
The “I don’t know how to keep going but I am trying” grief.

That kind of work doesn’t always translate in business circles built on visibility, speed, and momentum.

Grief work is slower.

It is sacred.

It happens in messages no one sees. In cards sent quietly. In conversations people remember for years. In giving language to pain people thought they had to carry alone.

It is hard to turn holy work into highlight reels.

And maybe that’s why I sometimes felt unseen.

I am not the loudest person in the room.

I do not need to announce every move, every win, every coffee meeting, every breakthrough, every breath I took before noon.

Some women are gifted at visibility.

I respect that.

But visibility and value are not the same thing.

Noise and impact are not twins.

Attention and legacy are not interchangeable.

That was one of the greatest lessons I carried out of that season.

I also learned this:

Not every room that helped you is meant to hold you forever.

Some rooms teach.
Some rooms stretch.
Some rooms reveal what you no longer need.
Some rooms show you where you do not belong so you can return to where you do.

And I know where my people are now.

They are in the grief world.

They are the ones carrying invisible weights.

They are the helpers, the heartbroken, the trying-again people, the women rebuilding after loss, the ones who need honesty more than hype.

They do not need me to be louder.

They need me to be real.

That, I can do.

So if you’ve ever felt overlooked in a room that celebrates volume, hear this:

You are not less because you are quieter.

You are not failing because you are deeper.

You are not behind because your work cannot be measured in applause.

Some seeds grow best underground before anyone sees the bloom.

These days, I’m less interested in being noticed by crowded rooms.

I’m more interested in being useful in sacred ones.

And if a room only knows how to honor noise?

Let it echo without you.

There’s something I’ve been sitting with lately…
something that came up in a room full of loss moms—
a room where no one has to explain why their voice cracks mid-sentence
or why a simple Tuesday can feel like a mountain.

We were talking about people.
The ones around us.
The ones who love us, but don’t always know how to hold us.

And someone said it—quietly, honestly, without any edge:
“They just don’t have the emotional intelligence for this.”

And the room didn’t flinch.
Because we all knew exactly what she meant.

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Here’s the truth we don’t say out loud enough:

Most people aren’t trying to hurt us.
They’re just…unequipped.

They haven’t lived here.
They haven’t had to wake up and breathe through the kind of silence that screams.
They haven’t had to carry a love that has nowhere to land.

So they reach for what they do know—
advice, timelines, silver linings,
phrases they’ve heard somewhere that sound like comfort
but feel like distance.

And we’re left standing there thinking,
How do you not see this?
How do you not feel this?

But here’s the complicated, tender, frustrating truth:

You don’t learn this kind of emotional intelligence in a book.
You learn it by being broken open.

And I wouldn’t wish that education on anyone.

Not ever.

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Still…
just because they don’t know how,
doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when they don’t show up the way we need.

Because what we’re asking for?
It’s actually not that complicated.

We’re not asking you to fix it.
(You can’t.)

We’re not asking you to understand it.
(You won’t.)

We’re asking you to stay.

To say:
“I don’t get this…but I’m here.”

To let us say their name.
Again.
And again.
And again.

To not change the subject when the grief gets uncomfortable.
To not rush us toward some imaginary finish line that doesn’t exist.

To sit in the mess with us—
not because you know what to say,
but because you care enough not to leave.

Because losing a child doesn’t become something we “move on” from.

It becomes something we carry.

Every day.
In every room.
In every version of who we are becoming.

And sometimes…
the heaviest part isn’t just the loss.

It’s feeling like we have to carry other people’s discomfort with it too.

So this is not a call-out.

It’s a call in.

For the ones who haven’t been here—
we don’t need perfection.
We need presence.

And for the ones of us living this…

The ones waking up and whispering,
“I’m trying…”

That is enough.

Trying to get out of bed.
Trying to breathe through the waves.
Trying to live in a world that kept spinning when ours stopped.

You are doing sacred work just by staying.

Maybe none of us get this perfectly.

Maybe we’re all just a room full of humans—
some grieving, some learning how to stand beside it—

doing the best we can
with what we know.

And maybe the most powerful thing we can offer each other is this:

I may not understand your pain…
but I’m not going anywhere.

And if that’s all we can do today—
stay,
try,
and love each other in the middle of it—

then that’s not small.

That’s everything. 🤍

I heard you the other day.
Not in a grand speech or a perfectly worded sentence—
but in something far more honest.

You said, “I’m trying.”

And oh…how that landed.

Because those two words?
They don’t come from a place of ease.
They come from the trenches.
From the mornings where your body wakes up,
but your heart isn’t quite sure it wants to follow.

“I’m trying” is not small.
It’s not weak.
It’s not something to gloss over or fix.

It is everything.

It’s trying to swing your legs out of bed
when grief has wrapped itself around your ankles.

It’s trying to shower
when even the thought of water feels like too much.

It’s trying to answer a text,
to show up,
to breathe through another wave
that no one else can see crashing over you.

It’s trying to exist
in a world that kept spinning
when yours came to a screeching, heartbreaking halt.

And for the moms—
the ones carrying a child in their heart instead of their arms—
“I’m trying” is sacred ground.

Because you are trying to mother
in a way the world doesn’t always understand.

You are trying to remember them
and survive without them
in the same breath.

You are trying to make sense
of something that will never make sense.

And somehow…
you’re still here.

That matters more than you know.

But here’s the quiet truth no one says out loud enough:

We are all trying.

In our own ways.
In our own messes.
In our own invisible battles.

Some are trying to hold a marriage together.
Some are trying to find themselves again.
Some are trying to smile through things they haven’t named yet.
Some are just trying to get through the day
without falling apart in the middle of the grocery store aisle.

This life—this wild, unpredictable, beautifully broken life—
can feel like a fishbowl sometimes.

Everyone circling.
Everyone watching.
Everyone assuming we’re fine
because we’re still moving.

But movement doesn’t mean ease.
And breathing doesn’t mean you’re not hurting.

Sometimes it just means…
you’re trying.

So if today all you did was try—
try to get up,
try to function,
try to keep going—

I need you to hear this:

That counts.

That is brave.
That is worthy.
That is enough for today.

Not forever.
Not perfectly.
Just for today.

Tomorrow, you’ll try again.
Maybe a little differently.
Maybe a little stronger.
Or maybe just the same.

And that’s okay.

Because trying is not the absence of struggle—
it’s proof that something inside you
is still choosing to stay.

And that…
that is a quiet kind of resilience
the world doesn’t applaud enough.

But I see it.

I see you.

Still here.
Still breathing.
Still trying.

And for today, my friend…
that is more than enough.

With you in the trying, always. 🤍

If these letters feel like something you need in your life right now…you’re always welcome here.