“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love.It’s all the love you want to give but cannot.”— Jamie Anderson
I went back to classes the following week. I felt heavy, unfocused, and exhausted. Every step felt forced. What I really wanted was to stay in my bed and cry. I didn’t want to face the world at all. Some days, the pain was so overwhelming that I didn’t want to exist in it anymore.
I walked into the History department, and everything felt strange—like I was moving through a place that looked familiar but no longer felt the same. I went about my job, making copies, running to the library, and sorting the mail. I tried to keep myself busy, to distract my mind from the weight I carried.
But no matter how hard I tried, I knew what I would have to face.
That empty desk beside mine…for the rest of the semester.
In the middle of that week, his mom gave me a bag for my daughter. Inside was Paul’s favorite childhood stuffed animal—a raccoon. A small tag was pinned to its ear that read, “From Paul,” with a little heart drawn in red ink.
I stared at the scruffy raccoon through blurred vision, knowing it would mean the world to my child.
I hugged it tightly.
It still smelled like his cologne—Armani Acqua Di Gio.
The moment that scent reached me, the floodgates of sorrow burst open. All the grief I had been trying so hard to hold inside came rushing out. I clutched that raccoon to my chest and sobbed, completely inconsolable.
For a moment, it felt like the closest thing to holding him again.
Grief has a way of hiding in the smallest things…waiting for the moment your heart can no longer hold it in.
I tried so hard to hold myself together, but grief has a way of finding you. A scent, a song, a stranger passing by, or even a scene in a movie could suddenly remind me of the love I had lost.
In an instant, I was right back in that moment of heartbreak.It made me wonder, over and over again—How do you recover from losing your soulmate?
Some losses don’t heal. You simply learn to carry them.
Losing that kind of love changes you.It leaves a mark on your soul that never fades.You carry it into every part of your life.
You love differently after that.Because grief is love…with nowhere to go. And mine was overflowing.
The stuffed raccoon 19 years later…
Ebbs & Flows 