I sat down to write this month's blog thinking I needed to have some profound lesson about grief…I don't, I just miss him.

This month I wrote about the quiet kind of grief. The kind that shows up when you vote for the first time without your person, when the calendar keeps moving even though part of you feels stuck, and when life keeps asking you to move forward before you're ready.

Some months there aren't big milestones or revelations.

Sometimes there's just missing him.

Today would have been our 10 year anniversary, and I’m learning that anniversaries after loss aren’t just about missing the person—they’re about grieving all the years you thought you’d have together.

It’s been 3 months since Cassidy died and somehow the world keeps moving while part of me still feels frozen in February. Lately it feels like everyone else has started moving forward while I’m still emotionally sitting in the same place.

This month I cried over missing a Pokémon drop because it felt like I let Cassidy down somehow, saw three different mediums just begging to feel close to him again, and continued learning that grief doesn’t happen in stages the way people describe it — it happens in layers.

I wrote about missing him in the smallest moments and what it feels like when the world starts becoming recognizable for everyone else while yours still doesn’t.

It’s been two months since Cassidy died and somehow it still doesn’t feel real.

I still look for him in every room I walk into. I still start sentences like he’s sitting next to me. And I’m still learning how grief can be sadness and laughter and anger all at the same time.

Last weekend was the first time I stepped back into the real world for myself since December. I went to TaylorFest wrapped in what honestly felt like friendship-bubble wrap, and it reminded me that parts of me are still here too.

I also didn’t realize until recently how much I had already started grieving him long before he died.

I wrote about what these last two months have actually been like.

One of the hardest things about this month has been learning how to talk about Cassidy in the past tense. He was my person. He is my person. And I’m still trying to understand how both of those things can be true at the same time.

I never imagined I’d be asking for help like this. Insurance is covering the bare minimum. Cassidy’s care needs are bigger than what they’ll approve. I’m physically breaking trying to hold everything together — and loving him is bigger than my pride. We’re still fighting. But we need support to keep going. I shared everything — the hard numbers, the hard decisions, the real need. If you can donate or share, it means more than you know.

We celebrated our anniversary in an infusion chair.

The weeks since have stretched us in ways I didn’t know were possible — physically, emotionally, spiritually. Loving someone through this isn’t soft or poetic. It’s lifting, changing diapers, making impossible decisions, and learning how to accept help you don’t even know how to ask for.

The 24 hours before we arrived in Houston were some of the scariest we’ve had yet. A routine lab turned into an emergency, a flight changed overnight, and by the end of the day Cassidy was being admitted to the ICU at MD Anderson Cancer Center. This is how we got here—and why it mattered.