April 11, 2025 is a date that split my life in two.

There is the version of me that existed before that day; the woman who shared nearly twenty years with Brett; who built a life, a home, a business, and a future alongside him. And then there is the version of me that exists now; the one who had to learn how to breathe again after watching the person she loved most take his last.

Brett was more than my husband. He was my partner in everything; in work, in dreams, in the quiet moments that make up a life. He was also a retired law enforcement officer who carried more than anyone should have to carry. PTSD is a silent weight; one that doesn’t always show itself in ways the world understands. He struggled to find help. He tried. And the system that should have protected him; that should have protected us; failed him.

That is something I will carry for the rest of my life.

Because he didn’t want to leave that hospital. And yet he was released anyway.

I went from fighting for him; advocating; hoping; believing we would get through it… to watching him die.

There are no words that make sense of that.

In the days and weeks after, I was in shock. Not the kind people talk about casually; but the kind that strips everything from you. I was terrified. Angry. Numb. I felt abandoned. I felt lost. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t know who I was without him.

And I couldn’t go home.

Our home; the place we built together; became something I couldn’t face. Walking through the door felt like waiting for him to come home. Every room held him. Every corner echoed with what used to be. For nearly a year, I was essentially homeless; not because I didn’t have a place; but because I couldn’t exist inside the one that mattered most.

Grief is not what people think it is.

It isn’t linear. It doesn’t move neatly from one stage to the next. It is layered; unpredictable; sometimes quiet and sometimes all-consuming. It shows up in the smallest moments; a song, a smell, a memory you didn’t ask for. It lives in your body. In your nervous system. In the way your heart races when something feels familiar; in the way time can stand still and collapse all at once.

There were days I couldn’t get out of bed. Days I felt nothing at all. And then days where everything hit at once; where the weight of what happened felt impossible to carry.

Grief also comes with questions that don’t have answers. The what-ifs. The should-haves. The moments you replay over and over again, wondering if something; anything; could have changed the outcome. It is a conversation that never fully ends.

And yet, somehow, you keep going.

I kept moving forward because that’s what people do. I went back to work at the Foundation. I showed up. I did what was expected.

But something in me had shifted in a way I don’t think will ever fully repair.

Working in a space connected to the very system that let Brett down broke something deeper. I became disenchanted; disconnected. I could no longer reconcile what I knew in my bones with what I was expected to support. It changed how I see everything; healthcare, systems, support; all of it.

April blurred into May. I existed because I had people who loved me; my family, my friends. They held me up when I couldn’t stand on my own. But I still had no direction. No purpose. Just survival.

And then, on May 31, something shifted.

Dolly.

My German Shepherd jumped into my lap at a dog show, and in that moment, something cracked open in me. I didn’t realize how much I needed her until she was there; grounding me; choosing me. She got me out of bed when I didn’t want to get up. She gave me something to focus on; something to work toward. She reminded me that there was still life happening around me.

My Shibas found joy in the simplest things; running, exploring, being exactly who they are. Watching them settle into farm life; seeing their happiness; it softened something in me. It reminded me that joy still existed, even if mine felt far away.

Spending time with my grandparents became sacred. Time slowed in those moments. There was comfort in their presence; in stories, in quiet, in simply being together. It was a kind of healing I didn’t know I needed.

By July, I wasn’t looking for anything. Especially not love.

But God had other plans.

I had written a letter; a quiet, honest prayer asking for my perfect partner. And within days, I met Brandon.

I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect anything, honestly.

Brett and Brandon are completely different; and my love for them exists in completely different ways. Brett is my past, my history, my first love. Brandon is my present; my now; my forever love; my future unfolding in ways I never could have planned.

And loving Brandon is easy.

There is no heaviness. No confusion. Just support, laughter, and a quiet kind of peace. He respects my love for Brett; never competing with it, never questioning it. He understands that grief and love can coexist; that one does not diminish the other.

He meets me where I am.

No matter how wild or uncertain my ideas are, he simply asks; “How do we make it happen?”

That kind of love is something I didn’t know I would ever experience again.

Grief doesn’t disappear when life begins to feel lighter.

It changes shape.

It softens in some places and deepens in others. There are moments now where I can laugh; where I can feel genuine happiness; where I can build something new. And then there are moments where it all comes rushing back; where I miss him in a way that feels just as sharp as it did in the beginning.

Both can exist at the same time.

And learning to hold both; to allow joy without guilt; to allow love without feeling like I am leaving Brett behind; that has been one of the hardest and most important parts of this journey.

By the end of 2025, we were living together in Farmington Hills. And then, together, we made the decision to come back to Vernon; back to my building; back to the place that holds so much of my story.

Watching Brandon adjust to small-town life; watching him embrace it; has brought me a kind of joy I didn’t expect. Watching my friends; my people; welcome him, support him, love him; fills me with gratitude I can’t fully put into words.

Because when Brett died, I wasn’t the only one who lost him.

My neighbors are my family. Chris didn’t just lose a friend; he lost a brother. And in the midst of everything, that bond; messy, strong, unbreakable; has remained. We may argue like siblings, but there is a depth there that only comes from shared history and shared loss.

In September, I stood in front of a crowd at the Shiawassee Suicide Walk and Remembrance event and told Brett’s story.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

But I wasn’t alone.

My dogs were there. My family. My friends. The people who have carried me through the darkest moments of my life stood beside me as I gave voice to something that still feels impossible to say out loud.

And now, here I am.

A year later.

My life looks nothing like I thought it would. And yet, in many ways, it is fuller than I ever imagined possible after that day.

I am back to blogging. Back to creating. Telling stories. Building something that feels like me again. I am spending more time with my dogs; pouring into the things that bring me peace. There are projects forming; ideas taking shape; a life rebuilding itself in quiet, meaningful ways.

There is still stress. Still uncertainty. Vernon; the building; the question of opening a shop; it all hangs in the balance. It would be easy to feel stuck in that uncertainty.

But if the last year has taught me anything, it’s this:

I am not in control of the plan.

And that has to be okay.

Because every time I thought my life was falling apart; something I never could have planned found its way to me. Healing didn’t come in the ways I expected. Joy didn’t look how it used to. Love didn’t return in the same form.

But it came.

In dogs who refused to let me stay in bed.
In quiet moments with my grandparents.
In friendships that deepened through loss.
In a man who showed up exactly when I needed him; in a way I never knew to ask for.

April 11, 2025 broke me.

But it also began something I didn’t understand at the time.

A rebuilding.
A redefining.
A life that holds grief and beauty in the same breath.

I will always carry Brett with me. That love does not end.

Grief has taught me that love doesn’t end either; it just changes where it lives.

It lives in memory.
In the things we built.
In the way I move through the world now; more aware, more intentional, more protective of what matters.

But I am learning; slowly, imperfectly; that my story did not end that day.

It changed.

I am still here; still loving; still creating; still finding my way forward.

And for that, I am deeply grateful.