The world kept going when my children didn’t.
People went to work. Stores stayed open. Schedules continued. Conversations assumed participation. Ordinary life did not pause to register what had happened.
I kept moving too. Not because I wanted to. Because stopping entirely isn’t an option when you still have a body, a home, and other people you love. Because the world does not reorganize itself around grief. It simply keeps asking.
I have lost two children. Dustin and Kayla.
Saying their names does not explain anything. It only makes clear that they were real people, not ideas or symbols, not a category of loss. They existed, and now they don’t. The world adjusted without them.
Life did not become quiet after they died. It stayed full. Grown children still called. Grandchildren needed attention. My mother and siblings were still there. Friends showed up with invitations and updates and ordinary expectations. Work continued. So did birthdays, showers, and gatherings that required showing up with the right face and the right responses.
None of this happened because I was ready.
It happened because relationships persist. Because other people still live inside time. Because life does not consult grief before continuing.
I am still learning what it means to wake up in a world that continued without them.
Not learning in the sense of mastering it. Not learning in a way that brings clarity or peace. Learning through contact. Through repetition. Through finding myself inside moments I did not choose, doing things that still need doing, responding because silence creates its own complications.
There are days when I function well enough to pass. I answer messages. I show up. I do what is required. That does not mean I am intact. It means I am participating because participation is expected, and withdrawal has consequences.
Grief exists alongside ordinary life now. Not instead of it. It sits in the same room as conversations about work schedules and family plans. It occupies the same body that buys groceries and attends appointments and listens to stories that have nothing to do with loss.
This is not strength. It is not resilience. It is not a lesson.
It is the result of being embedded in a living world that does not stop. A world that continues through people and obligations and routines, whether or not you are able to keep up internally.
I do not move forward because I believe in moving forward. I move because life keeps moving, and I am still here inside it.
Life keeps asking.
I don’t always know what I’m answering.
