One Year Later: Learning to Hold Two Truths at Once

Today marks one year.

One year since the phone call that forever divided my life into before and after.

For weeks, I’ve found myself wondering what this day was supposed to look like. Am I supposed to cry all day? Stay in bed? Visit the cemetery? Be surrounded by people? Pretend I’m okay? Cancel everything? Celebrate nothing?

The truth is… I don’t know.

And I don’t think there is a right answer.

What I’ve learned over the last year is that grief doesn’t follow a calendar, and it certainly doesn’t care about our expectations. It doesn’t arrive on cue because the date says it should. Sometimes it knocks the wind out of me in the grocery store. Sometimes it’s a song. Sometimes it’s complete silence. Sometimes it’s laughter that immediately turns into tears.

And sometimes…

It simply sits beside me.

Today is one of those days.

Right now, as I write this, my heart feels surprisingly steady. Not because I’ve forgotten. Not because I’ve moved on. But because grief has taught me that peace and pain can occupy the same space.

Ask me again in two hours.

My answer may be completely different.

That has become the rhythm of my life.

This year has been filled with impossible contradictions. I’ve experienced the deepest heartbreak I’ve ever known while also discovering parts of myself I never knew existed. I’ve lost the love of my life while somehow finding the courage to build something entirely new.

This week, Broken Arrow Dancewear officially launches into the world.

A dream born from heartbreak.

A business built during sleepless nights.

A reminder that sometimes life asks us to grieve and create at the exact same time.

Both things are true.

And today, I’m allowing both to exist.

As I thought about Michael today, my mind didn’t immediately go to our last conversation or the hardest moments.

Instead, I found myself thinking about the father he was.

His patience.

His relentless work ethic.

The way he loved our kids through showing up, working hard, providing, coaching, teaching, and sacrificing.

Now, as a single mom trying to launch a business while raising two incredible children, I understand that work ethic in an entirely different way.

There are days when I’m exhausted.

Days when I wonder if I can possibly do one more thing.

And then I remember him.

Not because I need to compare myself to him, but because I carry pieces of him with me every single day.

His determination reminds me to keep going.

His love for our kids reminds me why I keep going.

And while I wish more than anything he were here to see what we’ve built, I know that much of who I am becoming was shaped by the life we built together.

Perhaps the biggest lesson this first year has taught me is that grief isn’t something you “get through.”

It’s something you learn to carry.

Some days it feels impossibly heavy.

Other days it feels like a quiet companion walking beside you.

Neither version is more correct than the other.

The kids have told me they simply want today to be a day where we just… are.

No big production.

No expectations.

No pressure to perform our grief for anyone else.

Just a family continuing to love someone who isn’t physically here.

That feels right.

I also want to acknowledge that today is heavy for others who loved Michael.

To his mom and his brother, I know this anniversary carries its own kind of pain.

While life has brought us all to different places and different perspectives, grief belongs to each person who loved him.

I genuinely hope you each find whatever peace today allows.

And finally…

To the incredible tribe that has surrounded me this past year…

Thank you.

Thank you for sitting beside me in silence when words weren’t enough.

Thank you for allowing me to laugh without making me feel guilty.

Thank you for understanding when I disappeared for a while.

Thank you for celebrating my wins without forgetting my losses.

Thank you for reminding me that healing doesn’t mean forgetting.

You have allowed me to become someone I wasn’t sure I’d ever meet again.

The truth is, every single day now is a duality.

Joy and sorrow.

Hope and heartbreak.

Love and loss.

Building and grieving.

Remembering and becoming.

I’ve learned that I don’t have to choose one or the other.

I can hold both.

Today marks one year.

I will remember.

I will grieve.

I will celebrate the life we shared.

And then, just as Michael would have wanted, I’ll keep showing up—for our kids, for the people I love, for Broken Arrow, and for the life I’m still learning how to live.

Because love doesn’t end.

It simply asks us to carry it differently.