6 Months of My Journey

Six Months Without My Son

If you are grieving too, I hope my words remind you that your feelings are valid and you are not alone.

At around six months after a loss, many grief experts and countless people who have lived it talk about something often called a “second wave” of grief.

Here’s what it often looks like:

The Shock Wears Off
In the early weeks and months, shock and adrenaline can numb the pain just enough to keep you functioning. Around six months, that protective fog starts to lift and the reality of the loss lands even harder. Without that cushion, emotions can feel heavier, more raw, and more permanent.
External Support Drops Off
By now, most people around you have returned to their routines. The calls, meals, and check-ins are fewer, but your need for support hasn’t gone away in fact, it may feel stronger. This contrast can deepen feelings of isolation.
Ongoing Physical and Emotional Strain
Six months in, exhaustion, brain fog, forgetfulness, low motivation, and even physical symptoms like nausea, headaches, or disrupted sleep are still common. These are not signs of “doing it wrong” they’re part of prolonged stress and emotional injury.
Lingering or Intensified Emotional Pain
The heartache can actually feel sharper now, because the loss no longer feels surreal it’s painfully real. Dates, seasons, and life events can trigger intense grief surges.
Pressure to “Be Better”
Society may subtly (or bluntly) expect you to be “moving on” by now. This pressure can create a disconnect between how you feel inside and what you show on the outside leading to more mask-wearing.

“Somewhere out there, another broken heart is beating alongside yours, quietly carrying the same impossible love.”

Today is my six-month mark.
And even knowing all of that, I wasn’t prepared for how it would feel.
Honestly, it feels unbearable and I can confirm every part of that “second wave” to be true.

I wake up each morning and go to bed each night with a heart that feels shattered beyond repair. The hours in between aren’t much easier.

And as heavy as my own grief feels, there is another ache that never leaves me
the pain of watching my husband and our two daughters mourn in their own ways.
Each of them carries their loss differently, but I see it in their eyes, hear it in the quiet moments, and feel it in the space between us where his absence lives.
It’s a helpless kind of pain, knowing I can’t take away theirs while trying to survive my own.

I put on a mask each day just to move through the world.
It hides the brokenness I carry.
I fight the constant nausea that simmers just under the surface.
I struggle through the hatred I feel for a world that continues to spin without my son in it.

Tears still come sometimes in soft streams, sometimes in relentless waves.
I catch them, steady myself, and carry on, because that’s what the world seems to require.
But my mind feels altered, as though something essential has been rewired.
I move through my days wrapped in a quiet haze.

The shock has started to fade, but in its place is something heavier,
a wall I build, brick by brick, letting no one in and nothing out.

Most days, all I want to do is shut out the world, curl up and cry.
Cry until there’s nothing left.
Cry until, somehow, impossibly, I see him walk through the door again.

Flashbacks ambush me without warning.
They rip the breath from my lungs and replace it with panic.
I try to push them away, but the damage is done.

When I can, I hold on to a good memory.
I write it down, afraid of losing it.
Those moments are lifelines.

Pictures and videos are still unbearable.
One glimpse can drop me to my knees,
the tears coming hard and fast, my whole body shaking.

Six months without my son.
It feels like yesterday.
It feels like forever ago.

If you’re in this second wave too, I want you to know there’s nothing wrong with you.
You’re not weak for feeling the weight more now than you did in those early days.
It doesn’t mean you’re “stuck” or “not coping” it means you loved deeply, and you’re living in the after.

Grief isn’t something to get over.
It’s something we learn, painfully and slowly, to carry.

So if all you managed today was to breathe, you’ve done enough.
And if the tears came, whether in soft streams or relentless waves, you’re not alone.
Somewhere out there, another broken heart is beating alongside yours, quietly carrying the same impossible love.