Grief

Grief reshapes you in ways that can't be undone. After losing someone, you carry a permanent absence—not like a wound that heals cleanly, but like a part of your heart that's simply gone. You move forward, you laugh again, you find moments of peace, but you're fundamentally altered. There's a before and an after, and the person you were before can't be retrieved. Your heart beats differently now, lighter in some strange way because it's missing what it once held. You learn to live with this new shape of yourself, this version that knows a specific kind of emptiness, and somehow that missing piece becomes part of who you are—a tender spot that aches and also connects you to the love that carved it out.