Lately I have mourned all the events that have passed since Kara’s death—the places where she has not been present…these memories that the kids and I have had together. The laughter, the dinners with friends, the bedtime routines, and especially the times of grief. We have made great memories that consist of a family of 5, not 6.

It has hit me how much of life has passed. The hours pass by, and days and months. And she is not here. This simple reality is one of the most miserable things to grasp: she is not coming back. But in the hard of this acknowledgement, I am encouraged. Her life here has ended; my life has not. That seems odd, but all of this grief has an oddness to it.

She is not coming back. A simple, short concept, but long to grasp. My previous life, which led me here, is forever changed. When I communicate this to people, it seems strange that it took me months to realize this. My life goes on and I want to move with it.

This grief is like continually rounding corners. I begin to accept the road as far as I can see, then another corner is rounded and a new landscape is ahead. Some corners are not so bad, and the new landscape is fascinating. I am curious about the life ahead, but some landscapes are truly miserable. Some I round and want to hurry to the next view, but I take my time to grieve until the next corner.

The corners always come, life moves forward. I get the life of freezing time and never moving forward, but kids move forward with time. All kids have a desire to dwell on the future more than the past; they want to be older, never younger. They want more freedom, never less.

Life, not just grief, is a road rounding corners. We have preferences and desires for what we want the next landscape to be. I move forward, and I really hate that term “moving forward.” But I don’t know one that fits for me. Life is progressive and as my grief rounds corners, so does my life.