I Love You GG part 2

Please feel free to read part 1 "I Love You GG" which is earlier in my submissions.

TW: This story does have mentions of loss, grief, and death. proceed with caution, and maybe a box of tissues.

A Year Without You

It’s been a year.

Twelve full months without your voice. Without your hugs. Without your knowing eyes watching me from across the room, as if you could see right through the smile I was faking.

I thought grief would get easier. That time would blur the edges of the pain. That eventually I’d wake up and it wouldn’t hit me like a punch to the ribs. But if anything, grief has only learned how to hide better. It doesn't scream anymore—it whispers. Quiet and constant, in the back of my mind, in the pauses between conversations, in the silence right before I fall asleep.

Some days I feel okay.

Other days I crumble over nothing.

A bird lands on a branch near me. A recipe card falls out of an old book. A hymn plays softly in a grocery store. And suddenly I’m back there, curled up on your couch, eating cookies that were still warm, listening to you hum while you crocheted.

Then the memory slips away, and I’m just… empty.

I see cardinals now and think of you. That’s something people say, isn’t it? Cardinals appear when angels are near. I never believed things like that before. But now, when one lands beside me and tilts its head like it recognizes me, I pause. I let myself believe. I want to believe. Because if it’s not you, then where did you go?

I hate that I don’t know.

I still have your voicemail saved. I don’t listen to it often—it hurts too much. But it’s there, just in case. Just in case I need to remember what your voice sounded like when you said my name. Not everyone gets that. I know how lucky I am, and yet it still feels unfair.

You missed so much this year. You didn’t get to see me pass that class I thought I was going to fail. You weren’t there when I had my first real breakdown, when I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. You weren’t there to tell me I was being too hard on myself or to make tea the way only you knew how. You weren’t there to hug me—and God, I would’ve given anything for one more hug.

I still talk to you sometimes.

It’s not always out loud. Just little conversations in my head, the way I imagine you’d respond if I told you about my day. I tell you the good things, and the scary things. I tell you about the future I’m trying to build and how terrified I am of building it without you. I ask if you’re proud of me, even though I never hear the answer.

I hope you’re proud of me. That’s the part that stings the most—the not knowing.

If you were still here, I could ask you. I could tell you about my doubts and you’d remind me that I’ve always been stronger than I think. You believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

Now I try to carry that belief on my own. Some days I manage. Other days, I sink under the weight of it.

The world kept turning without you. That was the biggest betrayal of all. After your funeral, the sun rose the next morning like nothing had happened. People went to work. Laughed. Posted selfies. I wanted to scream at them. Don’t you know the world ended? But it hadn’t. Not for them.

Only for me.

I see your things and feel two things at once: a sharp longing to hold onto them, and a crushing sadness that you’ll never use them again. Your sweater still smells like you. I wrapped it around me one night and sobbed until I couldn’t anymore.

Grief isn’t just pain. It’s guilt. It’s wondering if I did enough, said enough, loved you loud enough while I still had the chance. I replay our last phone call and try to remember every word, every pause. I search it for hidden meaning, like maybe you knew. Maybe you were trying to tell me goodbye and I didn’t hear it.

Did you know?

I hope it didn’t hurt. I hope you weren’t scared.

I try not to think about that part, but I do.

I went back to your house once. Just once. Everything was exactly where it had been. Your glasses still on the nightstand. The candy bowl still full. I swear the air still smelled like your lavender lotion. I sat on your bed and cried into your pillow. It was like time had paused in that room—but only there. Everywhere else, it just kept marching forward, dragging me with it whether I was ready or not.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.

Big things are coming. Change. The kind you would have helped me prepare for. The kind you would have walked through with me, step by step. Instead, I’ll go into it carrying this ache, hoping your spirit is close by, even if I can’t see you. I wonder if you’ll be with me in those moments—the milestones, the new beginnings.

I want to believe you will.

I want to believe you're the wind that rushes past my ears when I stand alone outside. That you're the warmth on my shoulder when there's no sun. That you're the reason I pause sometimes, for no reason at all, and suddenly feel loved.

The truth is, I’m scared. I’m scared of a future you’re not part of. I’m scared of forgetting. But I know now that forgetting doesn’t mean letting go. And letting go doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore.

I still love you. So much it hurts.

But now, I carry that love differently. I carry it in the way I speak to others, softer, kinder. In the way I listen. In the way I laugh when things go wrong—like you used to do. I carry it in the way I move through the world, slower now, with more appreciation for the quiet moments.

I still miss you every single day.

But I’m learning how to live with the missing.

That’s what grief is, isn’t it? Not a wall you break through, but a house you build. Room by room. Memory by memory. You learn to live in it. Some days, it feels like home. Other days, it feels like a prison. But it’s yours now. Mine.

And you’re in every corner of it.

I’ll never stop wishing I’d answered more of your calls. Never stop regretting the days I chose school, or friends, or anything else over visiting you. I’ll always carry that. But I’m learning to forgive myself, the way I think you would have. I’m learning to turn regret into gratitude. Because we had so much.

So many people never get what we had.

And even though I didn’t get to say goodbye, I got a lifetime of hellos.

That has to count for something.

So here it is. My not-goodbye.

I’ll keep you with me. In the days that stretch long and lonely. In the nights filled with stars. In the spaces where your love still lives.

And when I see a cardinal, I’ll smile. And maybe cry. But mostly, I’ll whisper, Hi Grandma. I see you.

And I’ll believe that you see me, too.