This is a personal essay written by the author, sharing their individual journey and experiences. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this piece belong solely to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MyndStories. This essay has not been professionally vetted or reviewed for clinical accuracy.
The world fractured the day my partner died. It wasn’t a dramatic, cinematic shattering, but a quiet, insidious splintering, like ice cracking beneath too much weight. One moment, he was there, his hand warm in mine. The next, he was gone, leaving behind a silence so profound it screamed.
I never thought I would know grief so intimately. Not until the night I watched the love of my life slip away.
We met on a sunlit afternoon in the spring of 2013, when laughter seemed to hang in the air like the scent of blossoms. Our love grew in those golden months—late-night conversations, whispered dreams of a future together. He was my anchor, my safe harbor in a world that often felt too chaotic.
And then, 4 years later, he was gone.
One bike crash—a cruel twist of fate that none of us saw coming. The days that followed blurred into hospital rooms and whispered prayers. I held his hand through each moment of pain, clinging to hope with a desperation that burned in my chest. But you see, hope is a fragile thing. No matter how tightly you hold it, sometimes it slips through your fingers.
The night he died is etched into my soul. It was 3 AM. The ICU was quiet except for the soft hum of medical equipment and the shallow rhythm of his breaths. I held his hand, squeezing, willing him to stay, whispering words of love and comfort that felt hollow even as I spoke them.
When the final breath came, the world seemed to pause. The world around me ceased to exist. The sounds of the hospital faded away, leaving only the echo of my heartbeat and the unbearable silence that followed. I remember the way my chest caved in as if the air had been knocked out of my lungs. The room felt both too small and impossibly vast, and I clung to his hand long after it had gone still, as if holding on could bring him back to me.
There was stillness all around. The heavy, suffocating silence that signalled the finality of it all. He was gone. Just gone.
They say that when someone dies, the world should pause. But the clock keeps ticking. The earth keeps spinning. And you are left standing in a world that feels wrong—utterly and irrevocably wrong.
The funeral was a blur of well-meaning faces, hushed condolences, and the scent of marigolds, a smell I now associate with death. They spoke of celebration. I felt only the weight of absence.
How could I celebrate a life cut short, a future stolen? How could I celebrate when the other half of my soul had been ripped away?
The days that followed were a surreal haze. I moved through the world like a ghost, going through the motions of living while feeling utterly dead inside. I’d wake up in the mornings, reaching for him, yearning for his voice, only to find the empty space beside me, a cold, stark reminder of my loss.
Grief is not linear. It is a labyrinth with no clear path, with no clear emotions. It is nothing and everything all at once. Some days, the memories are a comfort—soft echoes of a love that was pure and true. Other days, they are brutal, like daggers that twist deep within, reminders of what was and what will never be. I found myself searching for him in the most ordinary moments—a laugh that sounded like his, his favourite mug to have chai in, the feel of his sweater wrapped around my shoulders.
I tried to find solace in the things people told me. “He’s in a better place,” they’d say. But all I could think was, “What about me? What about the place he left empty here, beside me?” I felt betrayed. Everything around me seemed fine, people seemed fine.
They told me time heals all wounds. But time, I discovered, doesn’t heal. It merely creates a scar, a constant reminder of the pain that lies beneath. You learn to mould yourself around your grief.
There were moments, fleeting moments, when I’d catch a glimpse of something that resembled hope. A memory would surface, a funny story he’d told, a silly face he’d make, and for a brief instant, I’d feel a flicker of warmth. But then the reality would crash down again, the crushing weight of his absence, and the warmth would turn to a piercing ache.
Yet, somewhere within that darkness, a flicker of light began to grow. It started with the smallest of things—a memory that brought a smile instead of tears, a sunrise that reminded me that the world still held beauty. I began to realize that grief, as heavy as it is, is also a testament to love.
We grieve because we have loved deeply. And in that love, there is a strength that endures.
Months later, I started seeing a therapist. She taught me about the stages of grief, about the importance of self-care, about the need to allow myself to feel the pain. But talking about it didn’t make it go away. It just made it… manageable. Like a dull ache instead of a sharp, stabbing pain.
Healing did not come all at once. It was a slow and fragile process—like learning to walk again after a fall. I allowed myself to feel the grief fully, to sit with the pain instead of running away from it. And as I did, I began to see that while his physical presence was gone, his love had woven itself into the fabric of who I am. His laughter still echoed in my heart. His kindness still shaped the way I saw the world.
I’ve learned that coping with grief isn’t about forgetting. It’s about learning to live with the absence, about finding ways to move forward with the love you shared, about honoring the memory of the person you lost by living your life to the fullest. It’s about finding light in the darkness, about finding hope in the face of despair.
Grief is a journey with no final destination. It becomes a part of you, and you learn to move forward with it.
He’s gone. But he’s not forgotten. He lives in me, in my heart, in every beat. I will carry his love. Always.
Until we meet again.
