3 months without Cassidy

Three months.

Somehow the world has continued spinning for three whole months without Cassidy in it, and I still don’t understand how that’s possible. There’s this strange expectation around grief that time automatically softens it. That eventually the world starts feeling normal again and you slowly “move forward” with everyone else. But lately, it feels more like everyone else has started moving forward while I’m still standing in the same spot or, in Taylor Swift terms “Help, I’m still at the restaurant.”

That lyric has lived in my chest this month because that’s exactly what this feels like. The world has moved on to the next conversation, the next season, the next thing to look forward to. Meanwhile, I still feel emotionally frozen in the aftermath of losing him and I don’t mean that in a bitter way.

I don’t expect everyone else to stay shattered forever just because I am. I don’t want the people I love to stop living. But there is something deeply isolating about realizing that while your grief still consumes almost every corner of your life, everyone else’s lives are slowly becoming recognizable again. Mine still doesn’t feel recognizable.

Mother’s Day came and went, and I never ended up writing about it publicly, even though it hit me harder than I expected. Cassidy and I were childfree by choice, but every year we celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day “from the dogs.” Silly little traditions, cards, jokes…tiny moments that felt ordinary at the time and devastating now. This year, all I could emotionally handle was sending his mom a card and that had to be enough.

I’m learning that grief isn’t always loud anymore. Sometimes it’s just this quiet ache that follows me into ordinary moments. Tiny realizations of all the things that disappeared when he did. Then there are the moments that sound ridiculous until you’re living them.

This month I cried over missing a new Pokémon drop…typing that out feels almost absurd, but grief is absurd sometimes. Cassidy loved Pokémon. He loved the excitement of new releases, the nostalgia of it, the fun of collecting and talking about it. And since he died, carrying those little pieces of him forward has felt important to me. Not because Pokémon itself is life-changing, but because it was his. It was part of the fabric of who he was.

Missing that drop felt like I let him down somehow, like I failed to hold onto one more piece of him.

Before cancer, he would’ve absolutely texted me about it. We would’ve talked about it. He would’ve gotten excited in that very Cassidy way that made even small things feel important. And now moments like that just feel empty. Quiet. Like I missed an opportunity to keep his memory moving alongside me.

That’s the part of grief people don’t really prepare you for. It’s not always the monumental moments that break you open. Sometimes it’s a Pokémon release. Sometimes it’s realizing there’s no one waiting to hear the tiny details of your day anymore.

This month also came with a different kind of fear. Kate has been dealing with some health issues of her own, and navigating that while already carrying this level of grief has been incredibly hard. Loss changes you. Once you’ve watched someone you love die, your brain starts treating every health issue like a possible catastrophe. I can feel how much cancer rewired my relationship with safety, certainty, and fear…maybe that’s part of why I’ve spent this month desperately searching for Cassidy in places I never thought I would.

I saw three different mediums.

Three.

Not because I’ve suddenly become deeply spiritual or because I fully know what I believe happens after we die. I went because I needed something. Anything. A sign, a feeling…a moment where I could convince myself that he still exists somewhere beyond my memories of him. I think part of me was just begging the universe to let me feel close to him again, to feel chosen by him again, to feel like maybe he’s still nearby in some way I can’t explain.

Grief makes you do strange things. It makes you bargain with silence. It makes you look for the people you love in every corner of the world because your brain still cannot fully accept that they’re gone, and the truth is, I still look for him everywhere. I still expect him to be in the next room. I still catch myself thinking, I should tell Cassidy that. I still instinctively reach for my phone. I still say “we” before remembering there is no “we” in the same way anymore.

Three months later, I am still learning how to exist in this version of my life…I am still figuring out how to show up for myself when for so long my entire purpose was showing up for him. I am still learning that grief doesn’t happen in stages the way people describe it. It happens in layers, sadness layered with anger, relief layered with guilt, laughter layered with heartbreak. Love layered into all of it, because at the center of all of this, even now, is love.

I loved him completely and three months later, I still do.