The Shift:

When Kirsten passed away, that’s when everything in my life started to shift. It didn’t
happen all at once. It was subtle at first. A heaviness in my chest that I couldn’t name, a
silence in the spaces she used to fill. I’d hear a song, or drive by somewhere we’d been,
and the reality would hit me. she was gone. Just gone. And nothing could undo that. the
truth is that her death didn’t wake me up right away.
Growing up as we got older, my sister and I found a rhythm. It wasn’t always perfect, and
she wasn’t always easy to be around but most of the time, our bond held strong. We
laughed, we argued, we had our moments. But deep down, I always knew she adored me. I
never questioned that. If I had needed her, really needed her, she would have moved the
world for me. She would have hung the moon and the stars if it meant I'd be happy and
healthy. She carried a lot. Things that shaped her, hardened her, sometimes made her
rough around the edges. But I also saw the softness in her, the way she looked at me, how
fiercely she loved in her own way. She had a fire in her that could burn you if you got too
close, but I never doubted that she would protect me with that same flam. I was mad at her
before she passed. Irritated. Maybe even a little cold. I was 19 and caught up in my own
world, full of pride and assumptions and the belief that there would always be time. I
thought we’d argue, make up, repeat the cycle, and have decades ahead of us to figure it
all out. I thought I’d have the time to say what I really felt, to understand her better, to love
her more openly. But I didn’t. And I still carry that
When Kirsten died, something in me shut down. I just... kept going. I was young, and the
world didn’t stop for my grief. I pushed it down. Numbed it. Moved on in the only way I knew
how and that was by not looking back too much. I told myself I was okay. That she’d want
me to be okay. And maybe she would have. But deep down, I wasn’t. I wasn't okay at all.
Then I hit my 30s. And suddenly, I just got still enough to hear everything I’d been avoiding.
That’s when the grief came back. raw, aching, but this time, ready to be dealt with. I started
to really think about her. Who she was. What she meant to me. What losing her had done
to me. I began to realize that I had been carrying her this whole time. Her pain, her love, her
memory. I started to see that maybe my path forward wasn’t about getting over her. It was
about carrying her differently. More gently. More honestly. Without shame. In my 30s, I
began to forgive myself. I began to grieve her for real. I began to grow into the woman I think
she always believed I could be. She was always my biggest supporter. I like to think that
she's in Heaven rooting for me just like she would if she were here on earth.