I designed a life that felt meaningful and conscious.

Then I lost someone I deeply loved. Suddenly. Without warning.

And everything I had built to sustain me - every practice, every belief - stopped. My spiritual foundations cracked. The world as I knew it collapsed. This was not meant to happen. It made no sense on any level. The pain was like that painting The Scream - silent, surreal, stretched beyond words.

I didn’t believe joy could ever return. The things I used to love - the sun, the trees, the smallest pleasures - felt like distant memories from what I started calling the halcyon days.

Nothing was fun. Nothing felt alive. Joy wasn’t just absent - it was unwelcome.

I went through the motions, showing up where I had to. But it all felt hollow. I thought: “Nothing is good anymore. And it never truly will be again.”

And then something turned.

Not because I forced it. Not because I tried to “fix” anything. But because grief softened - just a little - in the presence of something unexpected: connection.

I noticed the immense kindness of his friends.

I saw strangers grieving too and felt strangely close to them.

I witnessed the love he left behind, the lives he touched, the wisdom that still echoes.

And then I began to hear him. I remembered his laugh. His words came to me in quiet moments. I knew his voice - wherever I was.

Yes, I still ache to have him here in the physical. Wanting something so intensely while knowing it will never happen is incredibly painful. And for a long time, I held on tightly - afraid that loosening my grip might mean losing him entirely.

But the tighter I held, the more it hurt. Eventually, I learned to hold him differently - with memory, with breath, with the quiet knowledge that love doesn’t disappear just because a body does.

Sometimes, in that space, I feel him. I feel peace. I notice the sun again. I hear the music.

And I experience moments of contentment - not because grief is gone, but because love remains. Grief doesn’t want to be solved. It wants to be witnessed. And sometimes the most healing thing we can do is to sit with the ache - and let it be real. No fixing. No rushing. Just presence.

I still want him back. That hasn’t changed. But now, I know this: even in a world without him, beauty can still break through. Gently. Quietly. Like sunlight on skin I thought could no longer feel.

If you are grieving too… I want you to know this:

You don’t have to rush toward healing. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay. And you don’t have to believe in joy right now.

But someday, when you’re ready - joy may quietly return. Not the same joy, not the old joy. But something softer. Truer. One that knows how to hold sorrow in its hands.