Friendly Mechanic - Colorado

True story 😮‍💨

30 days ago, my life and the lives of my children changed forever.

I still struggle to make sense of what happened, or why it happened.

I didn’t just lose my wife. My children lost their mother. I lost my lifelong partner, someone I had known, in one way or another, almost my entire life. Relationships like that are rare, and I knew how rare it was while I had it.

At the time, I truly believed we were meant to grow old together. Through every high and every low, and there were plenty of both, we always found a way to stay together and work through things.

She was the person I shared everything with. Every bad day, every frustrating interaction, every funny story, every small win. She was the first person I wanted to call at the beginning and end of my day.

One of the strangest parts of grief is how every day reveals a new absence. Something funny happens and your instinct is to text them. You see something cute or ridiculous and reach for your phone before remembering there’s no one on the other end anymore.

I don’t just feel like I lost a person. I feel like I lost part of myself.

She helped shape me from a naive young man into the person I eventually became. She saw me at my worst and stayed long enough to see me grow through some of it. That’s part of what hurts so much now. The person you fought beside, sacrificed for, and worked endlessly to build a life with is suddenly no longer here to see the version of you they always believed you could become.

Every morning I wake up missing you.

And honestly, I don’t think I want to come out of this unchanged. I want part of me to remain visibly broken, because that scar is proof that this love existed. Proof that someone mattered enough to leave a permanent mark on my life. That piece of me will always belong to you.

The pain of losing you is unbearable at times, but what would hurt even more would be forgetting you. Forgetting your voice, your personality, your impact on all of us.

People may ask how you died, but I’d rather talk about how you lived.

I want our children to remember their mother. I don’t want time to slowly erase you from their lives. I want them to know who you were, how much you loved them, and the impact you still have on all of us even now.

That feels like an impossible responsibility some days, but I’m going to try. Because you are worth it. You are worth the grief, the random breakdowns, the hard mornings, and the long nights.

I hope somehow, somewhere, you can see how loved you still are. I hope you can see the overwhelming support people have shown our family over the last month. I hope you can feel the love being sent your way.

More than anything, I hope I can live in a way that honors your memory.

Before all of this, when life got difficult, I would’ve talked to you. We would’ve worked through it together and figured it out side by side.

Now it’s just me, trying to navigate a world that suddenly feels much quieter than it used to.

We love you. We miss you.

Happy Heavenly Mother’s Day.