They say grief has five stages.
But they don’t tell you about the in-between moments.
The silence between a scream and a sob.
The smile that cracks on your face when someone says his name, like your mouth remembers joy but your heart doesn't.
I remember the day he died like I remember every breath I’ve taken since — not at all. It’s all a blur. People think it’s the loud moments that stay, but no. It’s the quiet. The silence of an unanswered call. The stillness of his half-folded blanket. The ache in the air when you realize he’s not late — he’s just never coming back.
---
We weren’t perfect.
But he was the kind of imperfect I could fall asleep beside. He left his wet towel on the bed. He talked over movie scenes. He forgot to water the plants unless I reminded him. But God, he remembered everything that mattered. My chai — always with ginger. My bad days — always with forehead kisses. My dreams — always with both feet in.
And now?
Now the plants are dying, and I can’t bring myself to make chai because I’ll have to boil only one cup.
One.
How do people live like this?
---
Everyone says I should “move on.”
Everyone.
As if grief is a broken wrist. As if love is a wound you stitch shut and wait to heal. They say it kindly, their words wrapped in concern, their voices low like I might break if they’re too loud. But they don’t understand that I already did break. I shattered the day he left. The day they pulled me into that sterile hospital corridor and told me they "tried everything."
I remember laughing.
I laughed. God, what a horrible sound it must’ve been.
Because in that moment, I swear I felt the universe blink and forget he existed.
---
We were supposed to get married in December.
We had a list.
The stupid, silly kind.
Buy a toaster.
Learn to dance (even though he had two left feet).
Visit Japan because he said “Cherry blossoms are pink lies, I want to see them myself.”
Adopt a dog named Bruce.
Now the list just sits in my drawer.
Untouched.
Mocking.
The cherry blossoms will bloom without him.
And I can’t even look at a toaster without wanting to scream.
---
I see him in strangers.
The way a boy holds his girlfriend’s hand too tightly on the bus.
The way someone laughs with their head tilted back.
The way a man in a café stirs his coffee anti-clockwise — the same way he did, always saying clockwise was "too mainstream."
I chase ghosts now. In crowds. In smells. In songs that sound like the echo of memories I can’t hold anymore.
Sometimes I wonder — is it better to forget?
To let the memories blur?
But then I panic.
Because if I forget the way his fingers felt intertwined with mine…
If I forget the exact shade of mischief in his eyes…
Then what was the point of all this pain?
---
I talk to the moon sometimes.
That sounds crazy, doesn’t it?
But I do.
He once told me the moon was jealous of me because I had his love. I told him he was ridiculous. He said, “Maybe. But the moon still watches. Every night. Like she’s waiting to steal me back.”
Now, I sit on the balcony at 2 AM and whisper things into the night sky.
Are you still watching me, love?
Do you see how I’m trying to survive?
Do you miss me the way I miss you — not in waves, but like a constant heartbeat that never stops?
Sometimes the moon hides behind clouds.
I think maybe, just maybe, she misses you too.
---
They cleaned out his things two weeks after the funeral.
His shirts smelled like him. I buried my face in each one like some addict desperate for a fix of a life now gone.
I kept one.
The old maroon hoodie he wore when he was sick or lazy — or just happy. I wear it now. Not outside. Just at night. When the world stops pretending I’m okay.
It’s too big. It swallows me whole.
But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe grief needs to drown you before you learn how to breathe again.
---
People ask, “What would he want for you?”
That’s their way of coaxing hope into my hands, I guess.
He’d want me to live.
To write again. To laugh without guilt. To fall in love, maybe.
But here’s the truth no one wants to hear:
I don’t care what he’d want.
Because I want him.
And I can’t have that.
So I carry this emptiness like a second spine — invisible, heavy, necessary.
I keep breathing, but it’s not life.
It’s a performance.
A ghost of me playing the part of a woman who had it all once — and lost everything in the space between heartbeats.
---
They say time heals.
But they never say how much time.
They never say that some wounds don’t close. They just become quieter.
I still dream of him.
Sometimes he's running toward me, laughing, and I wake up with tear-streaked cheeks.
Sometimes he just sits beside me in silence.
But the worst are the dreams where he’s alive — and I’ve forgotten he ever died.
Because waking up from those…
is like losing him all over again.
---
But tonight, I’ll talk to the moon again.
And I’ll tell her about the way I whispered your name when I passed the bakery you loved.
I’ll tell her I saw a couple fight and smile at the same time, and I thought, he would’ve said that was “peak romance.”
And maybe, just maybe, the moon will whisper back:
He remembers you, too.
