Dear Diary,
Today I started therapy.
I almost turned the car around three separate times on the way there. The first time was when I was sitting at the stoplight two streets away. I remember gripping the steering wheel so tightly my hands started to hurt, staring at the red light and thinking, I don't have to do this.
The second time was when I pulled into the parking lot. I sat there with the engine running and watched people walking in and out of the building. They looked so normal. Everyone seemed to know where they were going. Everyone seemed to be carrying on with their lives.
And mine feels like it stopped.
The third time was when I actually reached for the door handle. I almost didn't pull it open, instead in my mind I could see myself turning around, heading to the parking lot, getting in my car, and then driving home. But, I didn't instead I went inside as every part of my stomach tore at me in a mix of panic and fear.
Part of me is still angry that everyone seems to expect grief to be manageable somehow. Like there is a proper way to do this. Like if I journal enough, cry enough, pray enough, talk enough, sleep enough, eat enough, or follow enough advice, then eventually I will wake up and somehow this will all be over.
But it isn't.
Rowan is still dead.
That sentence still feels impossible to write.
My husband is dead.
My husband.
The person who was supposed to grow old with me. The person who was supposed to complain about getting older while I laughed at him. The person who was supposed to watch our children grow up. The person I was supposed to annoy for the rest of our lives. And instead, I am sitting in a therapist's office trying to figure out how to breathe without him.
The truth is...
I think everyone is scared of how badly I'm falling apart.
And honestly?
I'm scared too.
The therapist's office smelled like lavender tea and old books. There was a little lamp in the corner with a warm yellow glow, and for some reason it reminded me of something Rowan and I would've picked out together. That stupid little lamp nearly broke me. It wasn't even anything special. But grief doesn't care about special. Sometimes it's the smallest things that hurt the most.
A lamp.
A song.
A smell.
Someone laughing in the grocery store. A man wearing a jacket that looks like his. The sound of a truck driving past the house. Everything keeps reminding me of him. I barely made it through introducing myself before I started crying. More ugly crying, I was so SICK of crying and yet I couldn't seem to stop. I hated this ugly crying from greif the most.
The kind where your chest hurts and your breathing gets all tangled up. The kind where words come out broken and you can't make your face stop crumpling. The kind of crying where afterward your eyes burn and your head aches and you're embarrassed even though you know you're not supposed to be.
I told her I didn't think therapy could fix this. I told her I didn't know why I was there. I told her I didn't want to learn how to live without Rowan because I didn't want a life without Rowan. And she didn't try to correct me. She just listened. Then she looked at me very gently and said,
"I don't think the goal is fixing you. I think the goal is helping you survive it."
I don't know why those words hit me so hard. Maybe because everyone keeps talking about healing. Getting better, moving forward, and finding closure. Those words feel almost insulting right now. I don't want closure. I want my husband. I don't want to move forward. I want to go backward to a day when Rowan was still alive.
But survive...
I think I can understand survive. Maybe surviving doesn't mean accepting that he's gone. Maybe it doesn't mean being okay. Maybe it doesn't even mean being strong. Maybe surviving means getting out of bed when every part of you wants to stay there. Maybe it means taking a shower. Eating something, even when food makes your stomach turn.
Answering the phone.
Taking care of the little life growing inside me when I can barely take care of myself. Maybe it means crying until there are no tears left and then getting up the next morning anyway.
I don't know.
I'm still figuring that part out.
My doctor also started me on medication that is considered safe during pregnancy because apparently not sleeping, barely eating, and crying until I throw up every night is "concerning." I laughed when she said that. I actually laughed.
For once.
Because concerning feels like such a tiny word for what this is. How do you put what this feels like into a medical chart? Patient is grieving the sudden loss of her husband while pregnant and appears to be barely functioning. That sounds so clean. So clinical. There is nothing clean about this. There is nothing clinical about waking up at three in the morning reaching across the bed before remembering. There is nothing clinical about talking to someone who isn't there.
There is nothing clinical about catching yourself thinking, I need to tell Rowan about this, and then remembering you can't. There is nothing clinical about being terrified that the baby will grow up knowing their father only through photographs and stories.
And there is nothing clinical about wondering if you're going to be enough for a child when you don't even know how to be enough for yourself right now. I feel guilty for taking medication. I feel guilty when I don't take it. I feel guilty for sleeping. I feel guilty when I don't sleep. I feel guilty when I laugh. I feel guilty when I cry. I feel guilty when I think about the baby. I feel guilty when I think about Rowan. I feel guilty when I think about myself. Grief has somehow convinced me that everything I do is wrong.
Mama drove me to a widow support group tonight too. I almost refused to go inside. Actually, I wanted to refuse. I sat in the car and stared at the building while Mama told me I didn't have to stay if I wasn't ready. I told her I wasn't ready. She said, "You don't have to be." So I asked her why she brought me. She looked at me and said, "Because you shouldn't have to carry all of this alone." And I cried.
Of course I cried.
Mama has been doing so much crying lately too. I think sometimes she tries to hide it from me because she thinks she needs to be strong. But I can see it. I can see it in her eyes. She lost someone too. Not her husband. Not her child. But she lost the version of her daughter who existed before Rowan died. I think she's grieving that girl too. The girl who used to laugh without thinking about it. The girl who made plans for the future without being afraid of it. The girl who believed that if you loved someone enough, you got to keep them.
I don't know if that girl is still in here somewhere. Maybe she is. Maybe she's just buried underneath all of this. When I finally walked into the support group, everyone was sitting in a circle. I hated that immediately. Circles feel too vulnerable. There was nowhere to hide.
No desk.
No computer screen.
No steering wheel.
Just chairs and people who were hurting. People who knew. I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to introduce myself. I didn't want strangers knowing that I was a widow. I don't even like saying that word.
Widow.
It sounds like someone else's life. Someone older. Someone whose husband lived a long life. Not me. Not Rowan. Not us. But then one woman looked at me. She didn't stare. She didn't give me that sad look people have been giving me since the funeral. She just looked at me like she understood.
And she said,"You stop feeling crazy when you realize other people survived this too."
Something inside me cracked wide open. Not healed. Not fixed. Not magically better. Just... Less alone. I cried so hard I couldn't speak for a few minutes. And nobody told me to stop. Nobody tried to make me feel better. Nobody said Rowan was in a better place. Nobody told me everything happened for a reason. Nobody told me I needed to be strong. They just let me cry. And somehow that was exactly what I needed.
There was another woman there who had lost her husband years ago. She told me she still misses him. Years later. She still talks to him sometimes. She still has moments where she sees something funny and turns to tell him before remembering. She said the grief never completely disappeared. It just changed. I don't know if that was supposed to comfort me. Honestly, it scared me a little.
Because I don't want to hurt like this forever. But she said something else. She said, "You don't have to stop loving him to keep living." I've been thinking about that ever since. Maybe that is the part I haven't understood. I've been treating survival like betrayal. Like every time I smile, I'm leaving Rowan behind. Every time I laugh, I'm forgetting him.
Every time I make a plan for tomorrow, I'm choosing a life he isn't part of. But maybe that's not what it means. Maybe loving Rowan and surviving Rowan's death can exist at the same time. Maybe I can miss him and still laugh someday. Maybe I can cry and still be a good mother. Maybe I can have a terrible day and still have a good one later. Maybe someday I will hear his favorite song and it won't completely destroy me. Maybe someday I'll be able to tell stories about him without falling apart.
I don't know.
I'm not there yet.
Tonight, I am still very much in the middle of it. I still want him back. I still wake up expecting him to be beside me. I still hate that the world keeps moving when mine stopped. I still don't believe things will ever feel okay again. But tonight, for the first time since Rowan died, I believe something I didn't believe this morning. Maybe I might survive long enough to find out.
Maybe surviving is enough for today. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take the medication. I'm going to go back to therapy. I'm going to go back to the support group. I'm going to let Mama help me. I'm going to try to eat. I'm going to try to sleep. I'm going to take care of this tiny little life inside me, even on the days when taking care of myself feels impossible. And I'm going to miss Rowan. I'm going to miss him every single day. Because surviving doesn't mean leaving him behind. It means carrying his love with me while I learn how to keep going.
I don't know how to do that yet.
But tonight...
I'm willing to try.
And for now, I think that's enough.
- Noli