Grief Comes in Layers

It’s been a while since I’ve written here.

Why?

I think the answer is layered.

For so long, my focus has been on the books. On getting the words out. On making something tangible from the grief that now lives inside me.

Maybe it’s because your heart can only hold so much pain at once. And when so much of that space is already filled with grief — grief etched into ink, into pages, into stories — there doesn’t always feel like there’s room left to create.

Although, as I write that, I wonder if creating and grieving are really separate things at all. Maybe I still need to think about that a little more.

I’d like to say I disappeared because I was busy celebrating success. But publishing a book doesn’t feel like success to me. Not in the way people imagine.

The books were never about achievement. They were about love. About grief. About making sure Cooper’s presence still exists in this world in some way. They are part of my legacy to him — proof that he was here, that he mattered, that he is still deeply woven into our lives.

What I didn’t expect was how exposed it would make me feel.

It is hard to be present — and even harder to become visible — when all you really want is to disappear