Our summer break was, quite literally, a break in our relationship.
He was traveling abroad, chasing adventure. I stayed behind, taking one final Spanish class to complete my foreign language requirement before my favorite professor moved away. Outside of class, I filled my days with my children — small trips, simple memories, laughter that echoed through the house.
Life felt steady. Busy. Full.
But even in the joy, there was an absence. His absence.
Summer faded, and the fall semester crept closer.
The moment his plane landed in Houston, my phone rang.
Seeing his name light up my screen stole my breath. For a second, I just stared at it — smiling before I even answered. The break was over. I had missed him more than I realized. His debates. His laughter. The way his arm wrapped tightly around me as if I were something worth holding onto.
“Hey,” I said softly. “How was your trip?”
“It was amazing,” he said, excitement spilling through the phone.
“I can’t wait to tell you everything. I’ll be home tomorrow. Can you come pick me up?”
There was eagerness in his voice. Almost urgency.
“Are you sure?” I asked gently. “Don’t you want to spend time with your parents?”
There was a brief pause — so slight I didn’t think anything of it then.
“No,” he said. “I’ll be spending time with my family.”
That was all he had to say.
At the time, it felt romantic. Reassuring. Like a choice.
Now, when I replay that moment in my mind, his words echo differently.
I didn’t know how little time we would have left.
I didn’t know that some reunions are sweeter because they are unknowingly fragile.
I didn’t know that this was the beginning of the last chapter of us.
But grief rarely announces itself.
It lets you believe you have time.
Fall semester began with its usual rush — new syllabi, crowded hallways, familiar classrooms. On the outside, everything looked the same.
But something had shifted.
He sat beside me again, but there was a seriousness to him now. A quiet undercurrent I hadn’t noticed before. The loud debates were still there, the confident answers, the sharp intellect — but when it was just us, there were moments when his guard would fall.
One evening, after the kids were asleep, he spoke in a way I had never heard before. No arrogance. No defense. Just honesty.
“I have a problem,” he said plainly.
He didn’t blame anyone. He didn’t make excuses. He didn’t minimize it.
He owned it.
And then he said something that still echoes in my heart:“I want to be better. For you. For them.”
He wasn’t thinking about himself in that moment. He was thinking about bedtime stories. About climbing trees. About school programs and scraped knees and being present. About building a future instead of sabotaging one.
He chose to go to rehab that fall.Not because someone forced him.
Not because he had lost everything.But because he didn’t want to lose us.
I remember driving home after dropping him off, my hands tight on the steering wheel. I was proud of him. Hopeful. Afraid. All at once.
He called when he could. His voice sounded clearer somehow — stripped down, humbled, real. We talked about the future in careful, fragile sentences. He spoke about graduating. About graduate school at UT — about married student housing and daycare. About stability. About being the kind of man my children could look up to.
There was something deeply beautiful about watching someone fight for their own life.
Looking back now, I see how brave that was.
He knew he had a problem.
And he wanted to live differently.
Not everyone chooses that.
And sometimes, even when they do… life has other plans.
Our one and only photo
Ebbs & Flows 