BEHIND MY SILENCE
To those who have wondered where I’ve been these past several months…
I haven’t disappeared. I’ve been surviving.
Life has a way of changing in an instant, and sometimes it asks more of us than we ever imagined we could give. The past few months have been the hardest season of my life—a season filled with unimaginable loss, overwhelming change, and the difficult work of simply making it through each day.
In the span of just three months, I lost my husband of 43 years, my partner, and the person I expected to grow older with. Losing someone you love so deeply changes everything. The world keeps moving, but your own world feels as though it has stopped. Grief doesn’t follow a schedule, and there is no instruction manual for learning how to live without someone who meant so much.
As if that heartbreak wasn’t enough, I also had to say goodbye to three of my beloved dogs, Lily, Remedy, and Winston and my sweet cat, Lucy. As you know they weren’t “just pets.” They were family. They were constant companions who loved without conditions, celebrated the good days, comforted the hard ones, and filled my home with joy, laughter, and unconditional love. Each goodbye left another piece of my heart aching.
finding my way forward
There are moments in life when one loss feels impossible. Experiencing so many, one after another, can leave you feeling as though you’re simply trying to keep your head above water. Some days, getting out of bed was an accomplishment. Other days, I found comfort in remembering the love that each of them brought into my life.
In the middle of all of this, I packed up my life and moved. Anyone who has moved knows it’s exhausting under the best of circumstances. Doing it while carrying so much grief was something I never imagined I’d have to do. Every box held memories. Every room held reminders. Every step forward felt incredibly heavy.
I chose to step away from social media, my blog & my YouTube channel because I needed the time to grieve without feeling pressure to explain myself or pretend that everything was okay. I needed space to cry, to heal, to rest, and to slowly begin putting the pieces of my life back together. Sometimes healing happens quietly, away from the noise, and that’s exactly where I needed to be.
If you reached out, sent a message, offered a prayer, or simply thought of me during this time, thank you. Even when I couldn’t always respond, your kindness meant more than you will ever know. It reminded me that even in life’s darkest seasons, we are never completely alone.
I’m still healing. I imagine I always will be in some ways. Grief isn’t something we “get over.” Instead, we learn to carry it while continuing to live, love, and hope again. My husband, my dogs, and my cat will always be a part of me. Their love shaped my life, and their memories will forever live in my heart.
I thank God everyday that I still have Cora, my heart dog. She is now officially and legally my ESA, Emotional Support Animal. Without her I simply would have no reason to keep on going. But …
finding yourself after grief
So today, I’m taking my first step back.
Not because life is back to normal—it never will be—but because I’m beginning to believe that joy and sorrow can exist together. That healing doesn’t mean forgetting. That moving forward doesn’t mean leaving our loved ones behind. It simply means honoring them by continuing to live the life they helped make so beautiful.
Thank you for your patience, your grace, and for walking beside me, even from afar. I’m grateful to be here again, and while I don’t know exactly what this next chapter will look like, I do know this:
Hope is slowly finding its way back into my heart.
Here’s to healing, one day at a time. ❤️
9 thoughts on “Healing After Loss: Finding My Way Forward After Grief”
I am so sorry for your loss and am heartbroken that you are going through this… recently I lost by beloved Chi Sophie she was only 8 years old, very healthy, she walked for an hour at a time. She loved, coconut, sunflower seeds, apples, carrots, red bell peppers. She was a little what I thought was under the weather. One day I woke up to find her frozen, just standing there unable to walk.. I took her to the VMC and just knew she would be coming home, but she didn’t. She suffered.. I held her for 4 hours and didn’t even look at her because I didn’t want to bother her and I just knew she would be coming home. she was wrapped up in her blanket. They said I could see her but just for a minute because they had to put an animal in an oxygen tent ( that was a small red flag – I could only see her for a minute?). They told me to go into a room, I expected them to bring her in, instead a woman came in with a lap top and started entering my charge card numbers. I did see Sophie just for a minute and kissed her and sang to her.. it was all a blur; she was admitted Sunday morning and died Monday evening. I learned later that she was frozen the whole while, during the surgery and after it and that she could not even close her 😭💔 I never got her spayed because I was looking for someone who would sterilize her instead so that she could keep her sex organs in order to support her endocrine system.. She died of closed pyometra, was in toxic shock and was hypoglycemic. I should have gotten her spayed and could have given her granules from mercola.. I only say her for 3 times, each time no more than a minute and then into a room where a woman entered more charge card numbers.. she was critical, they didn’t think she would make it through the surgery but she did. she remained critical. A doctor called me freaking out (rightfully so) because she wanted to give her a protein product that would help her already failing origins not to shut down but the center only had one and it was used up by another center. How could this happen??? Curing patients, animal or human is not a sustainable business model… I saw he the last time and she was moaning, I told them she is in pain and they dismissed it saying “oh she’s been doing this since she has been here 💔 I told them I am not a selfish person and they must put her down immediately. Her organs were shutting down they were not giving her anymore pain meds because it would have already lowered a critical blood pressure level. It was all beyond my beloved baby.. they injected the drug in her and had the bar up in the crib that she was in I could not even get close enough to help her cross over and then they put the bar down and she was hooked up to about 6 monitors. I asked them if they could unhook them so I could pick her up and they said no. 😭 I spend more time with the woman in a room entering charge card numbers then I did with my Sophie, who I spend a total of 4 minutes with at max.. then I wondered why, why now??? I began giving her a product from Ceaser Millan Better Dog Skin Magic, for some reason I thought it was well vetted and that it was formulated by a DVM. I should have known better.. After Sophies horrible death I got online and saw that it had RED CLOVER in it. Red Clover is high in phytoestrogens , which is a plant based estrogen and should never be given to an unspayed dog because it PREDISPOSES THEM TO PYOMETRA (how could this be that they could put this out on the market??) Also on the label online (because I had thrown everything that Sophie had out I no longer had the original jar) it said “MAY CAUSE HYPOGLYCEMIA ” how could this product be released???? Hypoglycemia can be deadly.. I contacted this company via their Facebook page and they gave me my money back (I don’t want my money back I want Sophie back) I want them to take this off the market as I believe it has a double fold risk of playing a dog’s life in jeopardy from pyometra and or hypoclycemia… I must find someone to help me with this. Sophie did not deserve this. She was admitted 9/21 and died 9/22 all the while frozen, eyes wide open and in pain… last week I asked for her medical records and notes from the hospital stay.. I read all 78 pages.. it said that they inflicted moderate pain to sensitive areas of her tiny body to see if she would move so they could enter it on a scale (they knew she could feel it and she could not move they should not have done this to her). They inflicted intense pain in sensitive areas for the same reason.. she was concious, frozen and could feel pain. they tortued my baby 💔😭 she did not deserve that… the stay was somewhere around 20,000 I have no money am single but don’t care about the money I will just have to dig myself out, I just want my Sophie back.. I fed her a homemade raw meat diet, I am vegan but buy the meat and grind it for the kitties and Sophie, I add Food Fur Life to round it out. And Sophie got plenty of veggies, which she loved. I have tons of muscle memory of her but she is not here.💔😭
I am so sorry for your earthly loss. I know you know your husband and babies are celebrating eternal life with Jesus. How amazing and awesome that is. I agree with every word you wrote. The last two years my sisters husband and daughter passed on into eternity. We packed up and moved to start a new beginning of healing. I broke my back in the move. We all are healing and honoring the beauty left by them. I know Jesus is wrapping his loving arms around you and absorbing your pain. I had no idea all this was going on in your life. Thank you for sharing. In our weakest time we are out strongest.
Praying for your healing and for the memories to live within you without the pain. It just takes time but it does get better. Trust that you will be reunited with your loved ones in the future. God bless!
I am sooo sorry for the loss of your husband and your sweet chichi’s and even your cat. This is just heart breaking and it just makes me so sad and crying. Bless you and may God send the comforter to help you through all of this terrible heart break. With heart felt sympathy and love Beverly
I am so sorry for all the pain and grief you are experiencing. No words can heal those wounds. I am sending all my love and prayers your way in hopes that you will continue on with this journey as you brought joy to my life when I needed it the most.
I’m so sorry for your many losses. May God’s love help you heal and give you comfort.
I know about loss, as out great Katy a 7 year old chihuahua, passed away this past Sunday. She was in the hospital for 3 days before she passed on her own after we arrived to take home when she started to code and by time my wife got to her side she has passed. I was so upset that I fell to the floor with grief. Her sister Precious is now dealing with her not coming home and we are trying to deal with this ourselves. It has hit me the hardest and my wife as Katy was with my wife all the time. The hardest is we are both retired so home all the time our girls as we called them were left alone to long.
Just wanted to share as I have read it will me heal talking about her.
No we never stop grieving we just keeping putting one step in front of the other and sometimes we just stop and cant move at all I lost my beloved of 49 years three years ago and during the same time I lost my beloved chi and my therapy pit bull who was the sweetest dog in the world and then my youngest daughter moved to another state to attend University I have two new chi’s in my life and I adore them I can not imagine not having pets (I have many) They are our healing angels I will send my prayers to you and I will be thinking of you It is not easy and no words can make it so Just know I am thinking of you and for many a long time I wondered how you were doing
I’m so sorry for your so many losses. I truly enjoy your content and praying that God gives your strength.