I used to think of Dustin’s death as being in the past, and also ever present.
Nine years had passed. The grief didn’t disappear, but it became more carryable. It lived alongside my life instead of overtaking it. I could feel joy about who Dustin was, and feel grateful for the twenty-six years I had with him, without feeling swallowed by the loss. I could recognize his death as something that shaped me, not something that consumed me.
At the time, that felt like healing.
Now Kayla is gone, and I find myself starting over.
Not because I misunderstood grief the first time.
Not because I assumed it would be easier if it ever happened again.
I was terrified of it.
I knew what losing a child does to a person. I knew what it takes from your body, your mind, your sense of safety in the world. That knowledge is why I did everything in my power to keep Kayla alive.
And when the grief arrived again, it didn’t surprise me.
I wasn’t surprised by the grief itself. I knew what it would bring. I recognized the shock when it hit, the numbness when it followed, the pull toward distraction as a way to survive. None of that was new to me. I had lived through it before. The grief didn’t stack into something easier or harder. It simply arrived again, fully formed, in a body that already knew its weight.
What’s cumulative isn’t the pain.
It’s the knowledge.
I knew the terrain. I knew how quickly language fails. I knew how important structure is. I knew that boundaries matter, that space matters, that survival sometimes looks very small.
But knowing those things doesn’t make the grief itself easier.
With Dustin, there came a time when the loss became part of the background of my life. It was always there, but it no longer required all of my attention.
With Kayla, I’m not there yet.
And I don’t think that means I’m doing anything wrong.
It means this grief is new. And it has also stirred something old.
Losing Kayla has brought the pain of losing Dustin back into the foreground. Not with the same intensity, and not in the same way, but enough to remind me how grief lives in layers. This loss doesn’t replace the earlier one. It reactivates it.
It feels more like more of the same, except resurfaced. The shock, the sorrow, the exhaustion are familiar, even as the loss itself is entirely its own.
The pain of losing Kayla is not softened by experience. It stands on its own. But it exists in a body that has carried grief before, and that changes how it unfolds.
Healing, for me, looks like building enough structure around all of this so I don’t collapse into it. It looks like learning how to carry what has returned, along with what is new, without losing my footing every day.
I have more time and space now. I have work that gives me a kind of strong back. Enough structure to stay upright, enough room to actually feel. Writing has given me language and understanding I didn’t have before.
I also notice something else.
This time, I feel sorrow for other people who are grieving Kayla.
With Dustin, I didn’t have that capacity. All of my energy went toward surviving my own grief. There was no room left to hold anyone else’s sadness, even when I cared deeply.
Now, even though the grief is just as real, I can feel for others too. That doesn’t mean this loss hurts less. It means my system isn’t fighting for oxygen in the same way.
That, too, feels like a kind of healing.
Not because the loss has softened.
Not because the pain has resolved.
But because I can stand inside it without losing myself every time I remember.
Healing, if it means anything to me now, means that the grief no longer feels like an emergency every moment. It means I can live alongside the loss without pretending it’s behind me.
It doesn’t mean I’m finished.
It doesn’t mean I’m better.
It doesn’t mean this won’t knock me down again.
It just means that, for now, I can keep going.
And for now, that is enough.
