I never used to think too much about death, just slightly knowing that I am afraid of it. Sure, I’d heard the theories – heaven, reincarnation, energy never dying – but it all felt far away.  Before, death was just a word. Distant. Philosophical. Something that happened to other people, in other lifetimes.

The love of my life died, and with him,  a part of me. Nothing made sense anymore. The world kept spinning, absurdly normal, while I stood still, blinking in disbelief. People asked me if I was okay. I nodded. But inside, everything had shattered.

And then came the questions. The ones you don’t ask until you have no choice.

Where did he go? Did he dissolve into nothingness – or did he slip into another layer of existence, just out of reach?

Is he still somewhere? Can he hear me? Does he know how much I miss him every day?

Sometimes I whisper to him in the quiet moments, other times I have long, out-loud conversations, mostly when driving or folding laundry or staring into the night. “Where are you?’ I ask. I don’t expect an answer, but I hope for one. I listen. Not with my ears, but with something deeper. I listen with my heart.

Other times, I swear I feel him. A shift in the air around me. A dream so vivid it lingers for days. His song that starts playing just when I need it. A sudden calm when I am falling apart. A heart in the strangest place when I ask for a sign. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe not. I’m not sure I care anymore. But I am sure it brings me comfort.

I’ve started reading about what different traditions say about death. Some believe our souls travel on, return, evolve. Others say we reunite in a peaceful place. Some speak of karmic bonds, soul contracts, and lifetimes woven together through time. I don’t know what to believe. But I know this: love like ours doesn’t just vanish.

Grief, I’ve learn, is more than pain. It’s a door to something deeper. It breaks you wide open. Makes you ask the big questions. And maybe, just maybe, it connects you to something greater than yourself. Grief is a lonely road, but it’s not empty. It’s filled with echoes and questions. Some days, I ache for his voice. Other days, I swear I hear it – in my own thoughts, nudging me, comforting me.

The world wants grief to be tidy. Neat stages. A beginning, a middle, an end. But it’s nothing like that. It’s a spiral. Some days I’m strong. Some days I’m broken. Most days, I’m both. And still, life continues.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy. Talking to someone who’s not physically here. Looking for signs in hearts, feathers, butterflies, wind or dreams. But then again – what if it’s not crazy? What if it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever done?

I light candles for him. Every day. I write to him, I talk to him when no one’s around. I imagine him laughing at me, teasing me for being too serious. And sometimes, just sometimes, I feel wrapped in something warm. Something that feels a lot like him. A scent, impossible and sudden, that once belonged only to him.

Love changes. It transforms. It whispers instead of shouting. Our love was always whispered and not shouted. It visits in dreams. It wraps itself around when the world goes silent.

I still don’t have the answers. But I’m learning to live inside the questions. I’m learning that grief is its own kind of love story. One that keeps going, even after death. Especially after death. I know this: wherever he is, I carry him with me. In every sleepless night and every sunrise that still manages to rise.

And maybe the real question isn’t where he went.

Maybe it’s where I go from here – with love, with loss, with the quiet hope that somehow, in some way, we’ll find each other again.

Always my Sun, my Moon, and all the Stars