439 days. No, it does not get ‘easier’.

1 year and 74 days since this nightmare began. 1 year and 74 days since I saw your face and since I heard your voice. It still feels like yesterday. Grief is weird. And it does not get ‘easier’ or ‘better’, or any of those things. The only people who will tell you that, haven’t lost a child. The only thing that has changed, for me at least, is that it feels different but certainly no less painful.

I still wake up to that now familiar sinking feeling every morning when I open my eyes and I still curse the universe when I do, for making me live another day on this earth without you.

It still hurts just as much as ever did. It is still impossible to describe such excruciating pain. There are no words in any language to describe the magnitude of this loss. I still have many moments where I feel as though I am watching this all happen to someone else, because it cannot possibly be happening to me.

I find most things a struggle. I get up, I shower and dress and eat. I go to work and do all the things that are expected of me. I talk to people if I have to and nod and smile in all the right places, but I don’t really care. I don’t care about the things that matter to other people, their topics of conversation are uninteresting and their words are just noise that don’t make sense. The entire world is too loud and I feel like an outsider. Everything is flat and grey.

I go through the motions every day, without any purpose or meaning, constantly asking myself how and why and still wondering what the hell happened. Most people have left now, their lives have just gone on as they always did. After the shock of the secondary losses wears off, I was left feeling some relief for having seen people for who they really are and incredibly grateful for those who stayed, despite everything and for those who have welcomed me into the most painful and sorrow filled group in existence. The compassion and love shown by others never ceases to amaze me. There is no other connection like that of grieving hearts.

I still spend every day trying to painstakingly search for the elusive answers to the ‘whys’ and every night chasing you aimlessly, trying to save you before it’s too late, but it’s always too late. I have seen people desperate to dream of their person. Maybe the grass is always greener on the other side but after 438 torturous nightmares, I pray to a god I don’t believe in that the dreams would stop.

Of all the dreams I have had, only in one of them did I reach you in time and save you. I brought you home with me. I made your bed, cooked you a meal, I fixed everything, down to the last detail, and I saved you. But it wasn’t comforting at all. It was probably worse than the nights spent chasing but never catching you. The days and the nights still feel like they blur into one long nightmare either way. I still wake consumed with guilt and pain that never lets up.

Some days I completely shut the world out. I sit with my thoughts and try and make sense of them. I never can. I continuously look at certain points in life before all of this and wonder if it was there where it went wrong. Then I piece together another narrative, one where you live. One where we all live and where our lives are not shattered into irretrievable pieces. I think it will always be this way. There is no peace, no happiness, no contentment, only a desire for it to end.

I am more aware of what is helpful and what isn’t. I like quiet, coffee, comfy clothes and staying away from people. People expect far too much, when in reality, they should expect nothing at all from anyone enduring this impossible burden of pain and sorrow. It takes all I have in me to function at a fraction of what I once did. It’s almost impossible to find space in a head filled with so much anguish and pain. I try to focus on being strong enough to hike up a mountain to scatter your ashes, more words that I can’t believe relate to our lives now.

I often find myself thinking “What a waste of a life”. You had so much left to do. But you were amazing and you lived. And your life was the most magnificent part of mine. You touched so many people. It really is an injustice that everyone you never met will miss out on knowing you.

You lived.

You mattered.

You will always matter.

I don’t know if there will ever be a time when I can focus on your life, more than your death, but I try. Trying is the only thing I am good at now.