Everything at once
On life expanding — when grief is no longer my only landscape, and I am left holding grief, love, and what comes next all at once.
Early in February I had one of my dreams with John in it. It was the first dream I had since he died, with him in it, where I wasn’t at some heightened level of worry, fear, or anxiety for him and his health. I woke up after that dream with a feeling of relief. Having every dream with John in it include his cancer, or fear around his health, has caused heartache in its own way.
The shift I felt towards the end of 2025 and into the first months of this new year: it feels like a harder part of my grief journey to share. At first, I was raw and felt flayed open. I had no inclination to filter or screen my experience or my pain. I could not imagine a time when I would not feel that way, even when I read about people farther out from their loss.
Now I am someone with some time and distance from my loss. That is something I feared for a long time, getting farther away. I would think about it, write about it. But even in all my pain, I was still showing up for myself in ways I did not realize would cause changes in me, that would cause my life to expand around my grief.
And now, it feels hard to share this because I can so vividly remember what it felt like to not be right here. To read about the possibility of being here, but not wanting to be. There is something more exposed about this: about sharing how I am living now, and sharing what I’ve come to understand.
It is easy to understand the devastation, the destruction, the sadness, the longing. It is a lot harder to understand this experience where all of that remains, and yet life has expanded around it. How I can feel the full weight of my loss and my love, and still be stepping into my future in ways that feel unexpected.
It isn’t about right or wrong. Or a standard, or a prescribed time. It is simply what feels true for me. It is about the inevitable clearing of dust from the rubble, and realizing I am still here without leaving anything behind.
But perhaps what felt impossible was leaving that person behind. When your love for a person is so profound that it’s a part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin.
— from Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
I can be in my life now, while also holding the memory of John. Who he was, who we were, what we built — none of it feels behind me. It is still inside me. I feel the weight of what I’ve lost while also feeling the pull of what is here and now, and what is still ahead of me.
My internal thoughts, ideas, and memories hold my attention in a way they did not before. There is a saying that the only reason for time is so that not everything happens all at once. But I have a new understanding of how everything in my life that has happened is still happening inside of me now, even as a new appreciation for my future unfolds.
I have seen death and I don’t have space for half-thinking, half-experiencing, half-loving, half-living. And if I had to lose John Marty, I will continue to love and connect because of what we shared.
I now know that love can end in devastating loss. And I know that love was worth it anyway. That fundamentally changes how I approach life, relationships, connection.
The real risk is not fully loving — in all my relationships: in the way I show up for Raffa, with my family, in my friendships. In how I let myself be known at all. Like sharing these parts of me here.
There are no silver linings with grief, I have said it before and I will say it again and again. But after facing loss, watching my world crumble, my intentionality only honed. If I thought I was clear and intentional before, facing death softened and sharpened me in a way that defies explanation with words.
But, I will try.
As I have done so many times since John died, I sit down to pour out the thoughts in my head. In doing so one thing always happens. I always learn more about myself and who I am and how I want to live. I am almost incapable of feeling bored, as I think about everything and everyone all at once, especially and including John. And it hurts so badly but it also does not.
Over the past nine months, death and grief have stripped away my tolerance for half-presence. I don’t romanticize grief, and I’m not reckless. But I find I am far less afraid of emotional risk than I once was — in so many ways I didn’t have to take that kind of risk inside my safe, stable, committed relationship with John.
I can’t live small to avoid loss — I’ve seen too clearly what it’s all worth: loving fully, even knowing it can be lost. I choose connection knowing it can be fragile, and I want relationships with people who are capable of standing in that reality, too.
I notice too much now to move through my life halfway. I am aware of what I’ve lost and what I still have at the same time, and that doesn’t allow for half of anything.
Loving John changed me. Meeting him at 18 and growing up in that relationship together changed each of us, individually and separately. Becoming Raffa’s mama changed me in ways I am still discovering. And losing John changed me, too.
But I get to carry all of that — always and forever. Even as I continue to grow and change. I have always been intentional. Living with grief didn’t create it. It distilled it. I am softer, I am sharper, I am more precise.