They say there are five stages of grief:
Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.
Like it’s a checklist. A process.
Like grief has a finish line.

But let me tell you
when you lose someone to suicide, the stages don’t show up in order.
They arrive like storms, overlapping and looping.
You can be laughing one moment and shaking the next.

For me, acceptance has been the hardest part.
Because acceptance feels like permission.
Permission to admit he’s really gone.
Permission to stop waiting for a text that will never come.
And forgiveness? That’s another beast entirely.

Forgiveness for him

for the pain he couldn’t outrun.

Forgiveness for myself

for all the “what ifs” I still whisper in the dark.

I drank for a year to quiet the ache.
Not to forget him, but to numb the spaces he used to fill.
Wine became my ritual.
Crying in the shower became my sanctuary.
But grief still found me — in the silence, in the songs, in the middle of crowds.

Eventually, I chose sobriety.
Not because I stopped hurting,
but because I wanted to feel something real again even if it hurt.

For a full year, I posted about him every month.
Stories. Little moments.
Photos that most people had never seen.
Not because I was afraid he’d be forgotten
but because I wanted to show who he really was.
The way he laughed. The way he looked at me. The soft pieces of him that not everyone knew.
It was my way of keeping him present, not preserved.
Shared, not shelved.
It helped me breathe.

And then came the anniversary.
8/27/20 at 8:27 PM
20:27, military time.

That synchronicity still gives me chills.
The exact moment the clock and the date mirrored each other.
Like the universe was marking it too like he was saying, “This was real. This mattered.”

And it did.
It still does.
Grief may be chaotic, but love — real love — leaves echoes.
Even after death. Even after the last goodbye.