It’s meant to be over.

Three months in full mourning, nine more in half. I wore the greys, the lavenders, the starch-stiff collars, and clothes that were deemed respectable by someone I don’t give a damn about. I did all of it right but I still miss you. I miss you so goddamn much that it hurts to breathe.

Today marks the day I am free to return to society, to wear the colors I want to wear, to begin a search for a new wife if I wanted one (which I do not), to live my life as if you hadn’t ever been in it. Truth be told, I am still trying to remember how to move at all. Grief has settled deep in my bones. My heart is still broken and I’m not sure anything can be done to fix it.

I didn’t think it would feel like this. I thought it would feel like some spell breaking at last. I thought maybe I’d breathe easier. Maybe I’d miss you a little less. But it doesn’t. It feels like betrayal. Like I’m being asked to step further from you than I’m willing to go.

Society must think that grief expires. That a year and a half is enough to forget a lifetime of love and memories, but you Sophia, are everywhere. My pockets, my lungs, the space beneath my ribs. I miss you. I can’t scrub you out of my head just because tradition says I must.

Sometimes I wake up and forget you’re dead. That’s the worst part. That moment before the grief returns, before the knowledge finds me again and drowns me.

They say I’m no longer in mourning. That I’ve done my duty. That I may go on.

But I don’t know how to do that. Not really.

I will try. For you. For the kids. For myself.

But I promise, I swear on my life Sophia, that I will never, ever forget you.

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