They told me to move on.

They told me happiness meant the pain would stop.

They were wrong about it all.

Every night I sat on my bedroom floor.

Crying. In silence.

For years, I convinced myself that if I kept moving, kept working, kept “healing,” the grief would eventually subside and I would feel happy.

It didn’t.

Instead, the grief intensified. It became angrier. More desperate for my attention.

Until one night, I stopped running.

I sat on the floor and let every bit of it wash over me. The rage. The guilt. The crushing weight of knowing she was gone and I was still here.

I gave up control and stopped pushing toward healing.

I listened silently to my grief tell me to “slow down and accept that you are broken–for now.”

I was pushing too hard, trying to be a healing all-star. And in my striving I burned out and watched things get worse.

But once I slowed down and accepted where I was broken, something shifted.

Not the grief. That remained.

It was how I was experiencing my pain. Instead of feeling like my heart was going to collapse in, I felt a gentle hand inside wrapped around my heart, ensuring it continued beating. My thoughts shifted from self-hatred to moments of self-compassion. Not all at once. It was a few seconds here and there, but steadily increasing over time.

I was no longer striving for happiness like it was a hard-earned trophy for conquering grief.

Grief and happiness are not opposites. They are not emotions you feel to the exclusion of the other.

They’re both experiences, both directions you walk simultaneously.

You can be drowning in grief and still choose to move towards the shore.

What is Happiness and Grief?

Happiness is not a fleeting emotion you chase.

It is not a permanent state of bliss.

it is not the absence of negative emotions.

Happiness is not a destination, it is a direction; an ongoing experience with natural ups and downs that morph and change over time.

Fear, anger, and sadness are natural necessary parts of being a human. They are essential for survival. A truly happy life includes these emotions, it does not eliminate them.

This is why grief and happiness can co-exist.

Both are experiences, not emotions.

It is important to understand that grief is not the event that happened to you, whether from loss of life, relationship, circumstance, or possession.

It is what is happening in you.

Once I understood that grief was happening in me, I was able to take agency over it. But agency is not the same as control. You can’t control your grief. You can only practice the three components of happiness while carrying it: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. (credit to happiness researcher Arthur Brooks)

Similar to how your body needs three macronutrients: carbs, fats, and protein.

Enjoyment. Touching Joy Without Betrayal

The waiter, desperately trying to navigate the tight space, bumped into my chair, knocking my coat to the ground.

“I’m so sorry sir.”

I nodded, “no worries.” I picked up the coat, draped across the back of the chair and continued the conversation with my friend.

In that moment, the only thing that mattered was our conversation. I was engrossed. I was present.

But mostly, I was not constantly looking towards the door waiting for Ariana to walk in.

It was the first time I realized I was enjoying myself.

Enjoyment is more than mere pleasure, it is about having positive experiences of life that includes savoring, appreciation, and presence.

I was present with my friend, smiling. Happy, even. I cried myself to sleep that night, but for years, I believed staying in pain was the only way to stay close to Ariana. I found out that day that I was wrong.

The joy I began to find in life no longer felt like betrayal of my grief, because I was experiencing it along side it. I was seeing proof that my capacity to feel my grief AND enjoyment were growing.

It takes time, but taking even one or two seconds to notice when you are appreciating something, or able to be fully present in the moment, is how you begin to build your capacity.

The truth in grief is that you can enjoy moments and still miss them.

Both are true.

Satisfaction. Building Through the Pain

My eyes began to blur. The hallway was closing in with each step I took. I felt my heart drop to the back of my chest. And my hands shook.

I couldn’t catch my breath.

I didn’t know what to do.

So I panicked and ran back up to the hotel room.

I spent years at war with myself, trying to remove the broken parts instead of accepting them. That war nearly killed me. And in my striving, I burned out. Hit bottom and watched the walls literally collapse around me.

I was supposed to remain in that hotel for 5 days. That was my first day.

I packed and flew home the next morning.

I began to accept my lack of control in my grief. To start developing compassion for myself and what I saw that was broken.

I had to reframe my thinking from, “I’m broken. Period.” to “I’m partially broken. For now.”

Acute grief is crushing and overwhelming at best. It almost always feels intolerable.

You cannot think, feel, or imagine anything other than the current physical and emotional pain you are buried in.

That is normal.

But, in those moments, it is critical to be still and quiet. Feel the entirety of the pain, despite so badly wanting to numb yourself.

You have to endure pain on top of the pain you are already experiencing. It feels like a cruel joke, I know.

But yes. You must take on more pain.

As you do this more and more, you will be expanding your capacity to hold difficult emotions, like a ballon that never pops, being filled with water.

When I was able to finally accept myself as-is, I started to see myself differently while enduring the hardship of learning to grow through my grief. It let me look back at where I was one month, one year, three years ago and see the growth that came from the endurance and perseverance of staying in the work.

When you make the hard choice to grow in your grief and re-build your life, you are putting in the effort and progress required to feel satisfied. Required to see change.

And this expansion will serve you throughout your journey with grief and moving you towards a life of happiness.

But it all starts with commitment. You have to accept that you will need to endure pain, again.

If this feels too overwhelming, that is okay. It is.

But remaining stuck in your grief is far more painful than confronting it.

Meaning. Finding the Gift in Your Grief

I pushed my arms into the body of my hoodie, attempting to take it off without exposing my stomach and chest. The office was so hot. It was always so hot.

My voice muffled, talking through my hoodie, going on and on about how shitty I felt.

I pulled the material over my head and slammed it on the couch.

A pause in the conversation.

“You need to stop swimming in your grief. You are using it as an excuse now. It’s time to head to shore.” My therapist said.

My face was blank. My lips squeezed holding in the words that played loudly in my head, “F*CK YOU! You don’t know. How could you say that. You don’t know what this is like. I don’t want to feel like I’m constantly drowning. F*ck you. I’m not using my grief as an excuse.”

She let her words linger heavy in the air. Dank, hot, musty air.

My face softened. I shook my head. Closed my eyes and felt the rush of tears overtake me.

“I don’t know how to stop.” I admitted.

After that moment, I knew the mission: swim to shore. So I went back to my toolkit containing journaling, gratitude practice, mediation, MORE therapy, and reframing. All of it.

And slowly, my arms began to move and my feet began to kick. The closer I got shore, the clearer a vision of a box resting neatly on the river banks.

Climbing up, shaking myself dry, I picked up the neatly wrapped box. I pulled at the ribbon, then ripped the paper off. When I opened it, I found something I never expected to find–a gift from my grief.

It was not the absence of pain.

It was not the “completion” of my journey with grief.

It was the meaning I found in my grief once I was able to connect my suffering to something bigger than myself.

Your gift will be different from mine. But be assured, we all receive unique gifts from our grief, should we choose to swim to shore.

When you dive deep into your suffering, you will inevitably find the connection to it’s purpose. It is when the question you are struggling with changes from “why did this happen to me?” to “what do I do with what has happened?”

Grief is Lifelong. Don’t be impatient.

I spent years being impatient. And it all lead me right back to collapse.

I had to learn to be patient and listen intently to what my grief was trying to tell me.

I had to accept that nights, sitting on my bedroom floor crying, was actually healing because I was letting myself experience the depth of my pain.

It was exactly what I needed to do, in order to learn how to swim to shore.

The many moments I sat in that pain, helped me realize that I was to serve others in their grief. To help them find support and transformation.

As you practice the three components of happiness (enjoyment, satisfaction, meaning), remember that you do not do so sequentially. It is an ongoing, simultaneous practice.

Eventually, you build up enough of the experience of happiness that you suddenly realize your relationship to grief has evolved.

The path from collapse to calling took years and it took a complete rebuild of my identity.

I still feel it’s sting, but with it I feel deeper love, enjoyment, satisfaction, meaning and freedom. All things that show proof of a happy life.

I know it can feel reckless to talk about happiness in grief, but waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and knowing exactly who you are, why you are here, and why you suffered is among the greatest freedoms you could ever have.

With tenderness,

- CJ

P.S. If this resonates and you’re ready to do the work of growing through your grief (not just surviving it), I have a few ways I can help:

• 1-on-1 Grief Coaching: For those who want personalized guidance rebuilding identity and finding your happiness again.

• Free Identity After Loss Workshop: Learn how to grieve who you used to be and find the freedom to enjoy your life again.

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I had spent ten years figuring out who I was and battling for my emotional safety.

Now I was back at the beginning. Not only having to rediscover who I was becoming, but learning how to support the person that I was.

My over-reliance on Ariana to make me feel safe was gone.

I was lost in a world that felt more dangerous than ever before.

With no hope to hold on to. No compass to point me north. And no guidebook on what to do next.

Worthless Became My Truth

There is always the kid picked last in the movies. The reject. The one that no one sees or thinks about. Then some adventure kicks off and that kid becomes the hero. He finds his inner personal strength.

Well, I was that kid. The one who played every sport but was good at none of them. The one who struggled in school. The last to be picked but first to be picked on. I was the wholly forgettable boy.

But, unlike the movies, I never found my redemption. My inner strength.

I remember one specific baseball game when I was elementary age. Stuck in right field, I watched the clouds move overhead. The grass was soft. I sat down, cross-legged, picking at dandelions while my teammates yelled at me from the infield. The coach asking if I wanted a pillow so I could take a nap.

I had forgotten I was in a game.

Wrestling was worse. During practice, my heart would start racing during drills. The panic would flood my chest. I was convinced I was dying. My vision narrowed. The coach’s instructions became muffled noise while I tried to remember how to breathe.

I was more than a bench warmer. I was the bench.

Then I entered my teens. We moved towns and I found myself in a new environment.

New school. New kids. New social norms.

It was a time I could reinvent myself. So I went from the outcast to the kid that dressed and talked differently. My roots were in hip-hop and my outfits and words emulated my favorite artists.

I had become an outcast of a different sort. It wasn’t exactly the reinvention I was hoping for, but overtime I assimilated and changed while keeping the core essence of “me.”

Unfortunately, I still was slow, unintelligent, and forgettable.

I still played sports. I still remained on the bench.

But after years of being that kid, I learned to enjoy my anonymity. I was perfectly content being in the background. There was a sense of safety and comfort there.

I can’t tell you if this was nature or nurture. Perhaps it was being told for so many years that I was worthless, disgusting, and nothing.

In the beginning you don’t want to believe it, but overtime it turns into your truth.

I WAS nothing. I HAD no value.

But in that, I found freedom to just be me.

I was not a follower.

I was not a leader.

I survived and found love at nineteen years old, when I asked Ariana to marry me.

“You Are Not Broken”

My experience of the college years was unlike any of the rest of my friends.

While they were out exploring and learning who they were, I was working, going to school, and figuring out how to be a husband and father.

Any certainty or confidence I had going into marriage and fatherhood was quickly shattered.

It fled as fast as the marital struggles came.

Within months Ariana and I were yelling regrettable words at each other.

The pressure of a child on the way, newly married, and living together for the first time in a house that was in a constant state of chaos from construction, became overwhelming.

We were kids trying to be adults.

I lost myself. My identity. So much of my past trauma began to surface and I dove head first into a deep and dark depression. I spent most of my days convincing myself that Ariana and my daughter would be better off without me.

A world that finally felt safe disappeared.

A relationship that was strong and beautiful. Shattered.

It was a time of my unraveling.

There were nights that I would sit by the kitchen window, in tears, panicked that Ariana was dead in a car crash because she was fifteen minutes late to get home.

Ariana, a new mother and wife, not only managed our home and baby, but she was now trying to manage me. I was there physically to help, but emotionally, I was absent.

Lost in my daydreams of no longer existing.

Eventually the shame I carried for the pain I caused Ariana became too great.

So, one night, while sitting on our living room floor, I looked up to Ariana, who sat crossed-legged on the couch and cried out five words, “You need to leave me.”

She was silent.

“I am too broken, Ariana. You need to leave me. You and Grace will be better off without me. I am too broken. There is no saving me. Please go find happiness.” I begged.

Still silent, she climbed down from the couch, lifted her hands, and held my face.

Meeting my eyes, “You are not broken.” she kept repeating.

The tears poured down my face. I sat frozen. Feeling every word she was saying. But struggling to believe.

The only thing I knew, is that she was choosing to stay.

To this day, I don’t know why. And I will never get to ask her.

But I am glad she did. Because her support and belief in me is what put me on the long journey to healing. And to my second love, therapy and self-work.

The feeling of being unworthy remained, but I slowly crawled my way out of the despair and into an anxious fueled life.

I grew older. We had two more children. And my ambition consumed me.

I found that mixing ambition with anxiety results in a constant state of high alert.

Sitting in my cubicle, thoughts that I was a fraud haunted me. A fear that followed me to every job I took.

Walking in the door to my home, I was greeted by my children’s enthusiasm and instead of feeling their love, I felt the pain of my failure.

“I’m not a good enough Dad. I don’t deserve their love,” played over in my head, sometimes loud enough to be heard over the kids laughter.

Each night, Ariana and I would go to bed together. Kiss and tell each other, “I love you.”

And each night, I would roll over to fall asleep to the refrain in my head: “She wants more than anything I can give her. I’m not enough. There’s no way she loves me. No way she is happy with me. Do better. Be more you fuck up.”

The decade progressed and I took small steps forward.

Until my 30th birthday when my world was shattered.

The Center of Our World

It had been a month of testing. A month of poking and prodding, reducing Ariana’s humanness to a mass of unorganized systems that needed to be checked.

There was one more test, her bone scan. If she passed this, she would still be nearly curable.

The call came in, “we found tumors in your ribs and spine.”

She was going to die.

Every pillar that I had built to support my life began to crack, bend, and ultimately tumble.

The work I was doing at Facebook faded into a blur. Sitting in meetings, my mind could not focus. I had a standing appointment with the therapist on-site. Which just ended up being my refugee to run to and cry.

I was breathing, but I wasn’t alive.

Everything that I thought my future was, vanished. The person I knew myself to be, gone.

Who I was faded to a distant memory. I became a conduit to serve and give Ariana everything she needed and wanted for her remaining years.

To begin preparing the kids for their mother’s death.

The anger built and would spill over into my relationships.

I would yell at Ariana. “Why aren’t you fighting harder?” I screamed one night in the kitchen, my fist hitting the counter. She stood there, exhausted, staring at me like I was a stranger.

I would scream at the kids. “Just go to f*cking bed and shut up!” I shouted up the stairs, my voice cracking. They were eight, seven, and four. They didn’t understand why I was so angry all the time.

The old thoughts of not wanting to exist returned.

I woke everyday wondering if it was going to be the last one with Ariana.

The nights laughing around the dinner table were plagued with knowing my kids only had so long to do this with her.

They knew she had cancer. They knew she would not be cured, but they could not understand fully that she was going to die.

Not until the day came when we had to tell them it was going to be Mommy’s last Christmas. The two oldest wrapped themselves around Ariana. My youngest sat, blank stare, avoiding the reality that he was going to lose his mom.

That night, we laid on the couch, wept, and held each other. The center of our world was leaving us.

When our eyes had gone dry, each person took to their place on the couch. We sat in stillness and watched a movie.

I could not focus on anything but watching my family of five start wrestling with the truth that we would soon be a family of four.

The hardest thing I’d ever had to do was tell my kids that their mother was going to die.

Or so I thought.

One Breath Changed Everything

Watching Ariana take her last breath on September 30, 2020 at 11:08AM became the hardest thing I ever had to do.

I watched my world crumble in the span of a single breath not taken.

I saw my children collapse.

I felt like I had lost everything.

The first night, late into the evening, I tucked the kids into my bed. Turned on the TV.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just told them, “This isn’t fair. It is painful. Whatever you are feeling is okay. We will get through it together. I love you.”

I kissed each one goodnight and left them to sleep while I went downstairs to a frightening silence and bone crushing emptiness in the house.

This continued for the next several years.

I was not me. I was merely a shell of flesh and bone with one purpose: keep the kids alive.

Every morning I woke up to the same day. Feed the kids. Get them to where they need to be. Go to work. Do chores. Don’t die.

Breathing was no longer a subconscious process. I had to actively remember to breathe.

Every night I would get ready, pretending I was going to sleep. I would stare at myself in the mirror.

My eyes were dark and lifeless.

My hair fading from black to white.

My skin dry, dull and increasingly wrinkly.

I was...old.

Each white hair or new wrinkle became my battle scars of the stress and aging of watching your partner slowly die for six years.

But I did not feel pride for them. I was in anguish.

I felt unlovable, unworthy and the voices of my youth began again: “You’re disgusting. You’re nothing. You’re gross.”

I felt truly broken. In my mind, body, and spirit.

Despite all of it, there was a quiet whisper that told me to keep fighting for my life and future.

Grief Was Winning Until I Stopped Fighting

As the days went on, I began learning that grief was my own private event.

I encountered situations that confirmed to me that others didn’t want to actually hear how I was doing. They simply wanted me back to who I was before Ariana died.

It felt like I became the uncomfortable reminder of what could happen to them.

So I sought out places where I was allowed to grieve.

Therapists, coaches, selective friends and family. It took work and effort to find those safe spaces.

A lot of effort.

But I was determined to confront my grief. To step into the abyss, find the reserves of strength needed, and step out changed.

The first step was changing my beliefs of my worthiness, or lack thereof. Which meant learning who I was now. My identity. My habits. My hobbies. My likes and dislikes. My values.

Everything was on the table. It was all new and yet discovered.

I had to begin to see myself for the intrinsic worth I had and not focus on all the externals that I lacked.

Each day brought new physical torment. My chest felt like it was caving in. My stomach twisted into knots. I would wake up with my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached.

I had to grow comfortable with the pain or else I would not survive the summit.

It took years.

Many mistakes.

Many failures.

A lot of shame.

But slowly progress was being made.

My bones began to heal. Skin grew around the muscles that were beginning to take shape.

I grieved the man I used to be. The man who died with Ariana and I started experimenting with new hobbies, interests, worldviews, and ideas.

I talked to others about their journeys with grief. I learned as much as I could.

Critically, I pushed myself harder than was necessary or even healthy.

But I was determined to heal. Mostly, I was desperate to escape my hell.

After years of endurance, I collapsed. My body and mind had enough.

I hit bottom.

The brokenness was still there, but hidden away, covered under the “sadness.”

I realized I was not in control. My grief was.

And I had spent too much time fighting for control in a battle that I was never going to win.

So I gave it up. Slowed down and listened to what my grief was saying.

Once I became quiet enough, I finally heard its whispers and it was one word, “anger.”

I resisted. Convinced I wasn’t angry. When in reality, I was too scared to admit that I was.

I was afraid of it.

Afraid of what it said about me.

Afraid of what I might do.

Afraid it confirmed everything ever said to me, “I was disgusting.”

Then, one morning, I found myself in a dark room. Hands grasped around handle bars. Feet snapped into the pedals.

The instructor yelling at us to dig deeper and push.

So I pedaled faster. My legs burned. My heart beating in my throat. And before my body gave out, the anger flooded.

I let my head fall and began screaming into my chest. Hiding what was happening from the rest of the class.

“I hate you, Ariana, for leaving me. I hate that my kids lost their mom. I hate that no one understands me. I hate every horrible and misguided word said to me.” I cried out.

My legs pushing harder now. I kept repeating my anger fueled mantra.

The anger turned to tears. Tears to acceptance.

Acceptance to the beginning of true healing.

When the Job Title Dies With Her

Part of the process of healing was learning to grieve the career that I had left behind.

It wasn’t the loss of the job, it was the loss of identity as the “smart, high earning, engineer.”

Now I was just a meme. The guy who “left his high paying job to become a solopreneur.”

I carried shame into every conversation I had about work. When introducing myself, “former silicon valley engineer” was always caveated before bringing up the work I was doing in grief.

I felt like an imposter. A fraud. Like I’d thrown away everything I’d built because I was too broken to keep going. I had given up stability and respect for something intangible that might never pay the bills.

I was proving everyone right who ever called me worthless.

My stomach would tighten, a knot forming just below my ribs. My teeth grinding. The voice in my head: “You’re wasting your life. You had something real and you walked away from it. Who are you to think you can help anyone when you can’t even help yourself?”

Whenever I hit a roadblock, or started to panic, I would start looking up tech jobs. A compulsive behavior to drown out the fear.

But after a few days, that internal drive would overwhelm the fear. The belief that this isn’t the work I want to be doing, it is the work that I have to be doing.

Working in the grief space was not a job. It was a calling in the truest sense of the word.

And the stronger the calling became, the further removed I was from the identity of “engineer.”

With one side effect: my ambition was no longer driven by the need to prove my worth, but it was driven for the love of the work itself and the service of others.

To help people navigate their grief, identity, and gain mastery of their inner world so they can find a future.

The Work That Had to Be Done

It is a lofty mission, I know, and a “future” that is impossible to think about when it was just ripped from you.

If someone told me I had a future while I was deep in my grief, I would have painted on a smile, called them an as*hole in my head, and walked away.

It was unfathomable. It was hateful to everything Ariana had suffered.

But even still, there was a part of me that wanted to keep fighting for that future. To believe I could thrive in my post-grief world.

Much of my growth has come from running my companies, Unvoiced, Growth in Grief, and Hopeless Mope. Learning to heal my own grief while helping others process theirs, were lessons learned in the trenches.

So, as I began to write a new chapter in my professional journey, I decided to take on a new role as a resilience and grief coach. Which also created a new identity crisis that I needed to manage.

I had to accept that this is where my work was leading me.

I didn’t see myself as a coach, even though I was already doing in my life. Getting to work 1-on-1 with people and helping them navigate their grief, validate what they are feeling, and make small steps towards their future is the most rewarding and fulfilling work I could be engaged in.

It is part of why I write.

But it took time engaged in self-reflection to settle into this new view of myself.

To embrace what felt cringeworthy and ignore the judgments of “others” (my inner critic).

After four decades on earth, I have seen time and time again how critical our view of ourselves is, how much we tie it to the wrong things, and how easily it can be lost.

It is absolutely an integral part of our human experience to have the skills and help in discovering our identity, especially as it changes throughout each stage of our lives.

I am excited to help others master their emotional landscape, find color in the world again, and hold space while they endure the pain of inner work.

Identity isn’t found in the wreckage. It’s forged from it.

With love,

- CJ

P.S. If you’re deep in your grief and the idea of a “future” feels impossible right now, I get it. I work 1-on-1 with people navigating this exact terrain—the identity loss, the anger you’re afraid to name, the slow rebuild of a life you never wanted. It’s hard, long-term work, but it’s the work that changes everything.

I’ve created a free course to help you begin to build your identity.

If you enjoyed this read, the best compliment I could receive would be if you shared it with one person or restacked it.

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Welcome.

Let me explain everything you need to know about my Substack publication “Growth In Grief.” It will only take a few short minutes.

Misson

My goal each week is to help you take one step forward in your journey with grief.

What does that mean? It means waking up each day with 1% more of your life rebuilt. To do it, I need to show you what grief is, how it affects your life, and what to do about it.

If you spend enough time with my writing, you’ll:

• Find your new identity

• Take more action

• Stop listening to society’s expectations of you in your grief

• Normalize your grief experience

Sign up now so you can begin today.

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About Me

TL;DR

My wife died from breast cancer in 2020 after five years of living with cancer. Leaving me with with three young kids, two dogs, and a shattered identity.

I spent years doing painful work to confront my grief. Seeking every kind of treatment, therapy, book that I could find.

Through all of the work, I was able to rebuild my identity and find my purpose and hope again.

Details

I walked away from a high paying tech career to write this Substack. It’s the main thing I do. There is no doing it half way. This is my life and my mission.

So, let me tell you about my life by starting with loss. Uncomfortable, I know, but it’s where the deepest truths live.

From childhood I carried undiagnosed mental illness; depression, OCD, and ADHD. The thoughts in my head were all consuming. Torture.

On my 30th birthday my wife was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. We spent the next five and a half years trying to hold it together while everything inside us shattered. I was a caregiver, a father to three young kids, and a husband watching the person I loved most slowly die.

On September 30, 2020, Ariana died. She was 35. I was 35. Our kids lost their mother. I lost my wife, myself, and my future.

Shortly after I started a clothing company called Hopeless Mope because I needed something to pour my grief into. Something that could hold the anger and the hopelessness I felt. And let others know they are not alone.

But clothing wasn’t enough. I started writing. Raw, honest posts about what grief actually feels like. Not the sanitized version people want to hear, but the truth. The posts that made people uncomfortable because they recognized themselves in the pain.

In 2023 I made the leap. I walked away from my 18-year career in tech to do this full-time. To write about grief, to coach people through their grief, to build resources that actually help instead of offering empty platitudes.

From 2020 to 2023 I built this on the side while raising three kids alone and working full-time.

In 2023 I became free.

That’s when I felt the shift to a fulfilled life. Not a life without pain, but a life where pain has purpose. It’s a life I want more people to experience by reading this publication.

My promise to you

In this Substack I promise to do the following:

• I will give you every part of me.

• I will tell you the truth about grief.

• I will tell you things that make me look foolish, weak, and broken.

• I will inspire you and give you hope, rather than dwell on the negative.

• I will respond to every single comment.

So, please promise me this in return: I don’t want you to deny your own grief journey because it might look different from mine.

I simply want to show you a path forward, to give you options, hope, and a starting point for wherever you are in your journey.

When you commit to yourself and confront your grief, that’s when you begin to see your future take shape. When the glimpses of hope flash through the pain, when you find purpose again.

We will learn things together. We will share and support each other.

Sign up now so you can begin walking your path with intention and hope.

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Why invest in premium Growth In Grief?

For an investment of $120 a year, I’ll guide you to the other side of your grief. Never abandoning the past, but carrying it forward.

Money spent on your well-being pays for itself and more. It is a level up in how you will handle your grief, rebuild your life, find your new identity, and capture the future that you thought was gone.

It you really are dedicated to paying it forward, join The Foundation Tier.

The table below shows you everything you get. I’m always adding more so it feels like you underpaid.

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A quick safety note

This publication is educational and reflective — not medical or mental health treatment.

If you’re in immediate danger or thinking about self-harm, contact local emergency services. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).

It has been a long 40 years existing. Especially the last decade. So, I decided to go into 2026 reflecting on that.

If you have ever hated yourself, then this letter is for you.

Hey, CJ, it’s me–the person you hate most in this world.

I initially came here to write a letter to help you change your false beliefs, but I know there is no convincing you. So instead, I am going to write you a love letter.

Because, CJ, I’m so f*cking proud of you.

I am standing on the foundation of everything you endured.

I exist because you never gave up, even when it was easier to do so.

All the years you spent in hatred and rage are a dull hum now. If I listen carefully, I can still hear them. But they no longer run the show.

Your life was characterized by fear.

Fear of being a monster.

Fear of being unknown.

Fear that the torment would never end.

Each day, you woke up to a stadium of people who hurled their judgements and sneers at you.

All their screaming and shouting. Reminding you of every wrong you have committed and everything that was wrong with you.

And you believed them.

So, they became your excuse to continue on in the pain.

I know just how deeply you felt you were unforgivable.

You believed you were not worth joy.

But you fought and never stopped believing in me.

What You Survived

Eighteen years old, in the car with Ariana and newly dating, the conversation was sweet and the love was growing.

Until, out of nowhere, pain surfaced that you hadn’t thought about for years.

And there, in the car, you broke down.

Instead of ending things on the spot, Ariana stuck by your side. She never let you go.

She became your protector. Your safe place.

Then your vow to remain with her until “death do you part” became a reality.

You watched your best friend not just breathe her last breath, but you watched as the years of cancer withered away her body and personality.

You spent decades of your life angry at your Dad. Feeling abandoned. Feeling like he never wanted to know you.

You tried. F*ck did you try. You wanted to have a relationship with him, but he wouldn’t have it.

A father only in genetics. A man too broken to have a son.

So you gave up on him.

Until he got cancer.

And for the next year you reconciled and our inner child was able to finally get that hug he was waiting 30 years for.

Then he died. Ripped from your life the moment he came in.

Your life has not been easy. And I could say, “no one’s life is.” But I won’t do that. Not here. Not to you.

You must hear and understand. Your life has been particularly difficult and I know you won’t admit that. So, I’ll say it for the both of us.

And, I want you to know, that despite all the pain, it has not gone to waste. Because you chose to make it a gift.

A gift, not for you, but for me and others. You went head first into the pain to confront it. To bring light into the shadow. Knowing you would never experience the other side.

You showed up every day, stared the monster in the eye, and stood up again and again.

CJ, I only exist today, able to write this letter, because of you.

You are a giant.

You haven’t had a choice in the events that have happened in your life.

And yes, I know you believed ending your life was the only way to escape the pain at times. Or that it would be better for your wife and children without you in their lives.

Gone. Forever.

You believed that you were so fundamentally broken that you were no good to anyone.

But you persisted. Not by yourself, but with the strength of those who surrounded you.

Thank you for choosing to stay.

Thank you for remaining in the work.

Thank you for the blind trust that you were creating a better world for me.

When Kindness Made You Sick

Kindness directed towards you, made you sick.

The kind of sick that burns in your throat.

Not because you were resisting pride and remaining humble.

No, you physically hurt upon receiving any kindness, because you never believed there was anything worth kindness in your heart or soul.

And yet, now I sit here writing this letter to tell you, CJ, we can finally accept those things. Not only accept them, but we believe them for more than a fleeting moment.

The pressure to succeed, be special, and be all things to everyone all the time is finally off.

My motivation is no longer driven by needing to feel worth. I exist for the joy of the work for the work’s sake.

The War No One Saw

The war within raged far greater, deeper, and more painful than anyone on the outside ever saw.

You didn’t let it defeat you.

You stood your ground and fought.

No one will ever know what it took, but I do.

You have made my life better.

You have given me hope for a future.

You have given me a reason to wake up each day.

We are entering a new year. Life is moving forward and we are getting older.

I know you feel that old age is just a degradation in your fleeting worth, but I see it as a gift.

Ariana never got to see her 40s.

I turn 41 this year.

I don’t know how much longer I have on this earth, but I do know that each day is one more opportunity to be 1% better.

Getting old means more chances to grow, connect, and love.

Still amidst the pain that never leaves, but a pain that has transformed into a dull ache.

I Forgive You

You have hurt and misjudged people, said horrible things, possessed damaging beliefs, despite how perfect you tried to be.

Because anything less than perfect was criminal.

You will never forgive yourself.

But I do.

I forgive you for being human and a monster. Being a monster comes with the territory of humanity.

Learning is as much about the mistakes as it is about the things you get right. Maybe more so.

You were born to learn through experience. It is going to result in many mistakes, failures, and unpleasant experiences.

And I love you just the same.

I love your excitement for the experimentation and willingness to fail out loud.

Her Love Transcended Her Death

You refused to believe people counted on you, because you could never count on yourself.

But they do, CJ, and I see it everyday. Your whole mission in life is to help others through their pain and learn to grow through their emotions.

That, by definition, is having people rely on you.

You are an example to me.

You kept going, even when the world stacked the odds against you.

And you know what, you’re so f*cking capable.

You can’t feel it, but I do.

The kids are growing up to be beautiful humans. Ariana gets to look on with admiration for the product of her love.

Because her love has transcended death.

It reached into the kids’ hearts and yours.

It held the four of you together, even when it felt like everything was falling apart.

When I get scared now.

When I feel at my worst.

It only takes one moment of connection with the kids to feel the depth of that love.

Thank you.

You Will Never Be Abandoned Again

I will leave you with this:

Though you may continue to live in fear, panic, and hatred of yourself, I will never abandon you.

I am here for good. So, whenever I feel your rage and angst rising in our body, I will notice the signs.

Instead of fighting it, I will call out to you and reassure you that you are loved.

Maybe not by others, but by me.

We have experienced deep abandonment, and now, I am telling you that you will never be abandoned again.

People will come and go. They will disappoint and hurt.

But I am always here.

Where we stand, we win.

With all the respect and love I can muster, I give to you.

— CJ

P.S. If this letter stirred something in you—if you've been at war with yourself and wondering who you're becoming—I made something for you. Identity After Grief: The 8-Day Rebuild is a free email course to help you start putting the pieces back together. No platitudes. Just practical steps and permission to begin.

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I had to take my daughter to her cheer competition. I would be there all day, as those things go. My one boy was asking me to take him to a friend’s house and my youngest needed help with his homework.

I knew I wouldn’t be around, stuck at the competition, so I tried to make food available for lunch.

“Sorry, I can’t bring you to your friend’s, I gotta take Grace. And buddy, we can do your homework when I get back, or ask your brother to help you.”

And then I was out the door.

At the competition, I sat all day, stuffed between bodies in a gym that was well over the safe decibel limit. Louder than a concert. I popped in my ear plugs and waited for the two minutes out of the whole day that I got to watch my daughter perform.

In the bleachers, I was surrounded by parents who were paired up for each athlete. I listened to them making plans for after the day was over. Who was going to cook dinner, what weekend plans they had and how they would split them up.

My stomach hardened and my throat closed. Inside, I was screaming, “f*ck you and your ability to share the burden.”

The anger never subsided. It only grew. Except for the two minutes when I watched my daughter perform. Those moments, filled with pride and sadness.

“Ariana, look at how amazing our daughter is.” I whispered to myself. Tears staggered down my face.

Back home, exhausted, I walked into the kitchen. The sink had a mountain of plates. Every cabinet left open. Wrappers littered the counter and table like an art project. Laundry needed to be dried and folded. Dinner had to be cooked and my son’s homework was still lingering.

I looked at everything, walked to the couch, and collapsed.

For the next two hours I laid there, house a mess, drifting from consciousness to unconsciousness. Fueled by an anger that my kids no longer had two parents to care for them.

They were stuck with me. Disadvantaged. Unable to meet all their needs.

It wasn’t bad enough they had to watch their mom die. Now they had to struggle twice as hard for their basic needs.

I was not a single parent. I was a solo-parent.

Father Death

I held onto anger. Over time I obscured my anger with sadness.

“I wasn’t angry, I was just sad.”

And so the justifications went on and on.

In the denial of my anger I began to pull away from my body, my children, and my life.

I retreated deep into my mind. Isolation on a level I had never felt before.

I couldn’t feel the edges of my own body. I only saw images that tortured my mind.

The kids had lost me. I was a flattened, deflated shell. At night, I would drape myself across the bed for a few hours of sleep and wake in the middle of the night to begin inflating my shell just enough to survive one more day.

I lived every day knowing I was failing at least one child.

They needed a ride to their friends.

They needed help with their homework.

They needed love, attention, and reassurance I would not abandon them like their mom.

And every time they asked, they were met with a grunt at best or silence at worst.

I grew resentful of children with both parents intact.

I grew to despise the complaints I heard from other dads on the sidelines at my children’s games.

I was sure I was angry for the kids, but the truth was, I was angry at Ariana.

It was her fault I was in this position.

It was her fault for leaving us.

It was her memory I cursed and screamed at while alone in the house.

It was the anger I refused to admit to myself. And the refusal kept me from growing.

The Admission

When I finally admitted it, out loud, something cracked open.

Saying the words gave my body permission to experience the pain and the anger. It let my mind rip open with everything I was feeling but could never admit.

When I spoke it out loud, that I was angry with her, it finally fixed the dissonance in my body and mind.

The secret was never the anger itself. It was the hiding.

If you’ve cursed your dead spouse and told no one, you’re not broken. You’re human.

Your anger does not define the relationship or love you shared with your person. It is a natural response from your nervous system that one day they were here, the next they were gone.

The grief I could carry. It was the anger I couldn’t admit.

- CJ

P.S. If you’re carrying the weight of denied anger, I wrote Torn Pages From A Broken Heart so you can know you are not alone.

What ways have you denied your anger?

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“Notice what is coming up,” my therapist said.

My hands clenched, my face scrunched, and my head shook in defiance. I resisted the words forming in my mind, that if uttered out loud would destroy decades of a belief that I was unlovable.

“It’s okay. Take your time. Just keep noticing,” she assured me, still steadily moving her hand.

I let my eyes fall shut and I began breathing with intention. Slowly over minutes my body started to ease its tension.

The words lingered in my consciousness, building into a palpable energy that moved through my body. It touched into the dusty and dark places of my heart and soul. Daring to shed light on the painful memories I kept locked away. The sneers from my peers growing up. The look of disgust on their faces, their actions and words that reinforced my perception of being unlovable and untouchable–a nothing.

“I…I,” I stopped to swallow in an attempt to keep the words from escaping.

The more I resisted, the harder the moment pushed back. The pressure on the back of my eyes overwhelmed and the tears dropped into puddles on my shirt.

Squeezing my eyes, I tried again.

“I…I.” Failure and a shirt more soaked.

My mind split into two. One side desperately holding onto the past and the other longing to move forward, leaving the old beliefs behind.

I took one more long, deep breath.

“I…I..love..myself.” I uttered through clouded vision and disbelief.

“I love myself.” I repeated as the energy of those words began to buzz around my body and expand outbound to fill the therapist’s office.

My head dropped and my rib cage collapsed. The couch caught my fall. Silence fell in the room where the only noise audible were my sobs of hope. I opened my eyes and saw my therapist smiling with tears in her eyes.

“I’m so proud of you,” she said.

It was the first time I told myself I was loved and the first time I actually believed it. Years of work led to three words. Three words that cracked open decades of lies.

But this was not the summit. This was base camp.

This was day zero.

I got up from the couch and walked toward the door. The road ahead was long. A lifetime, probably. But for the first time, I wanted to walk it.

Being a work in progress isn’t the character flaw. Pretending you’re finished is.

The Myth of “Fixed”

I used to believe there was a finish line.

A moment where the work would be done, the wounds fully healed, the old patterns finally dead. I imagined waking up one day and feeling whole. Complete. Fixed.

Finally worthy of good.

Ariana was dying. She laid lifeless on our bed. I climbed in, next to her, and held her hand.

“I want you to know that I finally see that I am worthy of love. This whole time, I thought people only loved me because of you. But I was wrong.” I whispered.

“Fixed” is mechanical.

You fix a car.

You fix a leaky faucet.

You fix things that were built to spec and stopped functioning along the way.

But humans aren’t built to spec. We’re born unfinished.

And that’s not failure.

That’s the design.

If you’re exhausted from wondering why you’re not further along by now, I get it. The world sold you a timeline that doesn’t exist.

Healing isn’t a destination you arrive at. It’s a direction you keep walking.

Why We Pretend to Be Finished

So why do we fake it?

Why do we smile and say “I’m good” when we’re drowning? Why do we perform “healed” for an audience that never asked for the show?

For years I hid my grief, subconsciously signaled to do so by the interactions I had. The pain I felt was to be hidden, keep away in secret while I performed “fine” to avoid making those around me uncomfortable.

We pretend because admitting we’re still in process feels dangerous. Like we’ll lose credibility. Like people will stop trusting us. Like they’ll see us as weak, unstable, too much.

We pretend because staying “in progress” means staying vulnerable. And vulnerability feels like a target on your back. So we go to war with ourselves instead.

But pretending to be finished is the weakness. It takes more energy to hold up the mask than to set it down. And the people worth keeping around? They see through it anyway.

Vulnerability isn’t the risk. Pretending is.

What “Work in Progress” Actually Looks Like

We’ve been lied to.

Transformation isn’t one dramatic breakthrough on a therapist’s couch. It’s not a single conversation that changes everything. It’s not a montage with inspirational music.

It’s small. Quiet. Repetitive. Boring, even.

The heads on my screen were all smiling. Each one more excited to share and listen. I sat in disbelief that I was a part of this group of friends. The thoughts crept in–*you don’t belong here and you have no value. *****

I didn’t deny the thoughts. I listened and heard them. Then I smiled and focused on the warmth and joy I felt seeing the faces of humans I love so deeply. The thoughts moved to a low background noise as gratitude for the moment overtook my mind.

That’s it. That’s the work.

Not a before and after. Not a straight line from broken to whole. Just noticing faster. Recovering quicker. Choosing again.

Some days you’ll catch the old story mid-sentence and redirect. Other days it’ll run the whole script before you realize what happened. Both count. Both are progress.

The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is awareness. And awareness doesn’t arrive once. It arrives over and over, every time you choose to pay attention.

The Permission You’re Looking For

If you’re reading this thinking you should be further along by now, let me be clear:

You’re not behind.

You’re not broken.

You’re building.

The shame you’re carrying about not being “over it” yet? That’s not evidence of failure. That’s evidence you’re still in the arena, still doing the work, still showing up for yourself even when it’s hard.

The fear that you’ll never fully heal assumes “fully healed” is a real place. It’s not. There’s only today. And today you’re here, reading this, still trying.

That’s enough.

The work isn’t an interruption of your life. The work IS your life.

The noticing, the choosing, the falling down and getting back up. That’s not the prologue to the real story. That IS the story.

You don’t need permission to be unfinished. But if you’re looking for it, here it is:

You are allowed to be in process for as long as it takes.

Day Zero, Every Day

I still think about that couch.

The moment I said the words I couldn’t say. The collapse. The silence. The therapist’s tears.

I walked out of that office thinking I had arrived somewhere. And I had. But not where I thought.

I didn’t arrive at “healed.” I arrived at willing.

Willing to keep walking. Willing to stay unfinished. Willing to be a work in progress for the rest of my life.

That was years ago. I’ve had a thousand day zeros since. Moments where I cracked open another lie, shed another layer, chose a different path. Each one felt like arriving. Each one was just another beginning.

The road is still long. A lifetime.

But I’m still walking it. Not because I’ll reach the end. Because the walking is the point.

You don’t become whole by finishing. You become whole by actually starting and refusing to stop.

- CJ

P.S. If you’re ready to do the deeper work of rebuilding who you are after loss, You take my free course, Identity After Grief: The 8-Day Rebuild. It’s for grievers who are done pretending and ready to do the hard, slow, beautiful work of becoming.

What is the sentence you are too afraid to say out loud?

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Can you remember the last time you looked in the mirror and didn’t immediately scan for flaws?

I can’t.

For most of my life, I counted on my body to be my most redeemable quality, the thing that people (especially men) liked me for. I was convinced that the way a woman mattered in the world was through how she looked. Beauty wasn’t just an advantage; it felt like the entry price to opportunity, attention, belonging.

If you’re reading this, I imagine you know this feeling too.

The microscopic inventory of everything you wish you could shrink, smooth, hide, or fix.

The constant assessment of “How do I look?” before ever asking “How do I feel?”

The inherited ritual of self-surveillance so many of us never consciously agreed to, and yet somehow mastered anyway.

And then there’s the unavoidable greeting we all know too well:

A hug. A smile. Followed by: “It’s so great to see you, you look…” insert body comment here.

Said casually. Said lovingly. Said with little to no awareness of what those words validate, uphold, or awaken.

But still landing like both a compliment and a curse.

Because whether someone says “You look thin,” or “You look great” while eyeing you up and down, what we actually hear is:

“You’re doing something right. Whatever you did to get here, keep going. Don’t change.”

We’ve all been conditioned into this vicious cycle.

We’ve subscribed to what I call the ‘Skinny Quest’, loudly or quietly:

• Feeling guilt after eating something “bad”

• Crash dieting before big life events

• Keeping old jeans as “motivation”

• Labeling ourselves with cruel names

• Spending far too much money on expensive supplements, injectables, cleanses

• Making up for indulgent meals with workouts upon workouts

• Believing a smaller version of us is a better version of us

I could go on and on.

My ‘Skinny Quest began’ quietly in high school. I don’t necessarily remember hating my body, but I do remember wanting to participate in the “skinny is always better” culture. Testing out crash diets (shout out, Special K diet), wanting to fit in with what the other girls were doing. It felt more like a trend I wanted to keep up with, but definitely not anything dangerous or obsessive.

When I got to college, skinny stopped being a preference, it became my full-time job. Suddenly I was clocking long gym hours, monitoring my body like a project I couldn’t afford to mess up, and scrutinizing every bite as if it carried consequences. It demanded overtime, perfection, and absolute commitment. No salary, no days off, just the illusion of achievement.

The thinner I became, the more impossible it was to satisfy, until one day it seemed like the only part of me that mattered was the part disappearing.

In a world full of so much uncertainty, my body became the one thing I knew I could control.

Back then I saw my body not as a partner, but as an object. Something to manage, manipulate, and monitor. Not something to love, celebrate, respect, or honor.

And society rewarded me for it. My initial hunch of how women are valued began to feel validated.

The comments came pouring in:

“You look so thin!”

“You look really great!”

“I’m impressed you didn’t gain the freshman 15.”

Every compliment reinforced the suffering it took for me to get there: the skipped meals, the obsessive thoughts, the fear-based discipline.

All becoming fuel for an inner voice powered by control, perfection, and comparison.

I didn’t recognize it then, but now I understand how damaging our collective belief system is, the one that trains us to shame, critique, and distrust the very thing that keeps us alive.

The system that encourages us to have no real relationship with ourselves, because that disconnect is where the profit is.

And when you don’t have a relationship with yourself, you outsource your worth. You rely on others to decide if you are enough, lovable, acceptable.

I didn’t know how to build a relationship with myself, but eventually the exhaustion of hating my own body became louder than the reward of being praised for it and I knew something had to shift.

That shift arrived in the form of yoga.

What I initially thought of as just another sweaty workout, became the turning point in my reclamation journey.

I didn’t have some big awakening. I simply started to notice how good I felt after a yoga practice.

Yoga taught me that my body wasn’t something to control, it was something to listen to.

Yoga taught me to feel instead of punish. To breathe with instead of brace for. To inhabit rather than audit.

Through yoga, and years of holistic healing, coaching, self-study, and spiritual work, I slowly stopped treating my body like a problem and began seeing it as something sacred.

I began to see my body as a wise partner. A source of answers. A perfectly designed machine that functions beyond logic. And the one and only place I get to live from start to finish.

While I’d love to say my eating disorder is totally gone, that wouldn’t be the truth.

It’s still alive inside me, it’s just not the decision-maker nor the narrator of my life.

Sometimes it whispers.

Sometimes it shouts.

But I can happily say that it’s no longer my toxic boss.

And if I can get here, so can you.

Changing your belief system isn’t a linear process.

Healing isn’t neat.

You don’t build a relationship with yourself through more willpower or control.

You heal through softening.

Through unlearning.

Through choosing yourself like never before.

Through rewriting the rules of how you relate to your own body, your own mind, your own worth.

So the next time you feel tempted to compliment someone’s body, try saying something that feeds their potential, not their disorder.

Tell them they’re glowing.

Tell them you love their energy.

Tell them you appreciate their presence.

Tell them they inspire you.

- Chloe
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https://www.humantohumanlife.com/

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I was alone and misunderstood.

But before Ariana, you were my big sister.

If you’ve been the “hero” or “silent supporter,” this one is for you.

To my Big Sister,

You are the reason I am here today and able to put words on the screen expressing the outsized impact that you have had on my life.

I didn’t get to choose you as my big sister, but I would choose it again and again.

We grew up in the same home, with the same caretakers, and the same circumstances. Yet, as with any siblings, our experiences were vastly different.

Our worlds would often collide as I, the annoying little brother, wanted so badly to see the fascinating world of the “older kids.” I remember wanting to be by your side. Hang out with your friends and be accepted into your world.

Now, I didn’t realize I was doing this at the time. I was young. My brain not fully formed.

But, looking back, I don’t know if I needed to be accepted in your world as much as I just needed to be accepted.

Growing up the world was so unsafe for me. I woke up each day with my body shaking from pain, fear, and inescapable horror. I had no control over my life and I had no ability to defend myself against the bullies in school.

I didn’t know who I was, what I was, or my purpose.

I could not push myself in sports, because every time I started breathing heavy, I thought I was dying.

I could not push myself academically because my mind was so pre-occupied by fear, that I had nothing left to give to my studies.

And, it was all so uninteresting.

So, I lived inside the worlds of my video games and books. Spending hours immersed in other realities. Even writing my own. Typing them out on our barely functioning computer that wasn’t even able to do bold or italic text.

But sis, as I review the timeline of my life, amidst the pain, I see these bright spots that are impossible to miss.

When You Jumped Off The Porch

All the times you came to my aid and the lifetime you have spent protecting me whether you were near or distant.

I am convinced there isn’t a day that has started and ended where you weren’t ready to jump in and fight the bullies, push the bad thoughts away, or steer me back on course.

I must have been no more than ten years old, playing outside in our front yard on Down St., busily taking apart my toys in an attempt to re-engineer them, climbing the trees, and drinking out of the hose that hid between the low cut bushes.

When suddenly, a group of kids showed up spitting their taunts and desperate to make me bleed.

Knowing I could not win, I stood in silence. I took on all their malice and internalized it as truth of who I must be.

And before the first punch was thrown, you came rushing out of the front door, jumped off the small porch and into the yard next to me.

Panic overtook their faces as they slowly backed away and turned tail running down the street.

The Burden You Carried For Me

Dad left when I was young.

You were able to remember a life with our family intact.

I could not.

Growing up everyone would remind me how much I resembled this man I barely knew.

And the older I got, the more intense my desire to know him became. But my actions never followed my desires.

I was a scared 30 year old boy too afraid of his Dad and because of that dissonance I grew angry and resentful.

An off-handed comment about how I cut my food the way Dad did immediately brought bile into my throat.

I didn’t want to be anything like him.

But you never gave up.

You took on the burden of keeping him in our lives, however small and infrequent it was. Then we had our children and you carried that burden, not only for me, but for all our kids.

A daughter teaching her father how to be a Dad and Grandpa.

Then we got news that he was dying of cancer and in the span of one year we stood by his bedside as he took his last breath.

I was heartbroken he was gone but I had no regrets.

In that last year of his life, Dad and I reconciled and created a beautiful relationship. My inner child rejoiced and smiled.

All made possible because of the unfair burden you took on to keep the tiniest bit of connection to him in our lives.

The Nights I Lost Control

We grew out of our childhood and into adolescence.

Our relationship began taking a new form. Our friend groups overlapped.

But I still remained your little brother.

One night, after a house crawl on the street of your apartment, and partying with strangers and friends alike from house to house, I ended up sleeping in the bathtub of your apartment.

Or another night, hiding myself behind the couch from our friends and drunk crying.

I overdid it too many nights because I still longed to hang with the “older kids,” but more so, I was desperately numbing the pain I still carried.

The ultimate test of our relationship began the day I started dating Ariana.

There was something categorically different about her. There were qualities she possessed that I only found in one other person–you.

Early into our dating, I was standing in the garage, on the phone and listening to her tell me how difficult it was to handle the closeness that you and I shared.

She felt like a third wheel.

I couldn’t listen to it.

I screamed as I circled the hard pavement floor, building up in intensity until I pulled my leg back, tensed, and pushed it forward, kicking the hard plastic of the red and yellow car made for toddlers in front of me.

It took time. Adjustments, but eventually I watched you and Ariana become best friends.

We continued to grow older and finding our place in our budding families.

I stood in front of your stairs, and through a smile, told you that Ariana was pregnant before anyone else.

You were the first to know about everything in my life.

Both the good and the bad.

The Bully You Couldn’t Fight

The sun was lowering in the California sky, sending a beam of light into the van. I sat, hands and face resting on the steering wheel.

I was waiting for Ariana.

I lifted my head and reached over to my phone. I pulled up your contact and hit “call.”

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as my knuckles popped.

“Hey, C!” you answered.

“Hey.”

“How’s it going?”

“Well, um, Ariana…she..uh…she has cancer.” The tears started rolling down my cheek.

The little boy in me, reaching out his hand for you.

We spent the next five years developing a callus to her cancer. Giving our best to establish a firm foundation for our children and spending time with our family.

I felt alone again.

This time though, it was an isolation that even evaded your presence.

On September 25, 2020 we admitted Ariana into hospice treatment.

We got her drugs.

We got her schedule.

The first step, putting on her fentanyl patch.

My hands shook as I held it. Whether conscious or unconscious you noticed and took control.

You slipped on the gloves, opened the package and carefully placed it on Ariana’s arm. Not before dropping it on the floor, sending me into a panic that the dogs would lick the residue and die from an overdose.

We spent the next five days living on her schedule of medicine. Not sleeping. Barely functioning.

You developed a routine of pill crushing and mixing, then injection into Ariana’s mouth.

You never left her side or mine.

My big sister showed up for me those five days, but this time, she couldn’t scare away the bullies.

The Language We Share

The world around continues to give us a side-eye when observing our closeness. They sigh in frustration at our room filling, roaring laughter that only we can understand.

Our love has been forged in the battles of our youth and the deep pain of our adulthood.

I lost my wife. You lost your best friend.

But in it we have had each other.

Blunt as your delivery may be, I know you enough to know how much love is underneath the–sometimes–unsolicited advice.

You aren’t always right, but you are enough that I take everything you say to heart.

I would miss our weekend trips away together.

The moments we have to let loose, laugh, and talk until 4:30AM when our flight leaves at 7AM.

I would miss our morning calls.

The time carved out each day to commiserate, support, and encourage each other.

I would miss the closeness we share if you were to disappear.

The belief that I am not alone anymore.

Any amount of joy, support, or care that I am fortunate to share with you is worth whatever it costs me.

We speak our own language.

Covert.

Obfuscated.

Unpredictable.

There is no one in this world that I could go spend a weekend with and laugh as hard as I do with you.

You are, without a doubt, the greatest big sister.

You’ve made me a better man, father, husband, friend, partner, and son.

I love you deeply.

From your forever younger (and better looking) brother,

- CJ

P.S. If you are trying to figure out who you are now that your person is gone, I built a free email course called Identity After Grief: The 8-Day Rebuild. It helps you start putting the pieces back together. Join the free 8-day course her

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The previous six attempts to get his attention, as we stood on the moving walkway, had failed. He was fixated on the airplanes parked outside. I stood behind him managing the stroller with all the bags and carry-ons saddled on every place I could find. My youngest buried somewhere underneath.

I saw the teeth of the comb plate getting closer.

I panicked.

I had two options:

Either I ran Charlie over with the stroller and hoped for the best.

Or, shoved the stroller aside, bags and my youngest spilling onto the grooved rubber.

I chose a third.

I tried to lift the stroller over Charlie, severely underestimating the weight and awkwardness of a stroller filled with bags and a child.

The stroller pushed forward. My heart dropped to my stomach as I felt the stroller rolling over the bumpy terrain of a six-year-old body who was now on the ground at the end of the walkway.

Charlie let out a high-pitched screech.

I fell onto him, letting out a loud, “f*ck,” as the stroller cleared the walkway.

Lying on the ground with the moving belt scraping against my stomach, I looked up and saw two older women, luggage in hand, barreling towards us.

Their eyes widened as the wheels of their luggage began rolling in place over my shin.

I freed my legs, wrapped Charlie in my arms, and shot out from underneath the luggage.

I put Charlie down on his feet.

Then I grabbed the stroller, head down, fumbling to put the bags back in place, jaw locked.

It was all the chaos that anyone with kids comes to understand. And it was all the normal insanity that I took for granted. Being too exhausted from raising the kids and managing life to find time to truly appreciate the moments as they fell into history.

A year later, as I was sitting in the oncologist’s office, under the fluorescent buzz, I clenched my fists listening to her tell Ariana she was going to die.

And while the chaos remained the same, my response to it changed.

The kids still fought and yelled at each other, but now I was focused on helping them become a team. I knew, some unknown day, they would need each other as their world crashed down around them.

I looked forward to the dullness of the mundane. The moments in between life where Ariana and I could stand still—together—in a void outside the pain and hurt. Holding hands in the car and begging her to let me go to sleep while she laughed, endlessly scrolling her phone.

I was reminded of her impending death every morning I woke up and every night I went to sleep.

It made each dinner feel like the last.

And each time I told her, “I love you,” it had to carry enough weight to linger long after death.

The bullsh*t faded away.

The guy who cut me off on the road no longer mattered. The childish behavior of my coworker was not a concern. I was taking photos of every moment with Ariana and the kids. Trying to freeze time so we could remember it later.

I learned that the cliché, “Life is short,” was painfully true.

But also that life is long.

Ariana died at thirty-five. Her life was cut short. But those moments in hospitals waiting for her scans, surgeries, and sitting in the oncologist’s office, were excruciatingly long.

I learned I didn’t matter, not as the main character. People are in their own storms. That freed me to stop performing and live outside “should.”

No one is paying as close attention as you think. Being honest about who you are is not the scary thing you’ve made it out to be.

Boundaries and honesty became the shortcut to growth and healing, to a life actually fulfilled.

Lesson 1: Life is short

Ninety days.

That’s how long we had between scans. Ninety days to breathe, to plan, to pretend we had a future.

Every three months, Ariana had to get scanned to check the progress of her cancer. If she was “no evidence of disease” (NED) it meant we could breathe easy for the next three months and her treatment could remain stable.

If they found new tumors, it meant her cancer was no longer responding to the current chemo and medication cocktail she was on. So, she had to change. She failed.

And with each failed medicine, it meant we were running out of options.

We got the dog. We took the trip to Asia.

Every decision became binary: Does this matter? Yes or no.

If yes, do it now. If no, stop pretending it does.

A weekend in a cabin with the kids mattered more than a weekend deep cleaning the house.

Building memories mattered.

Even in the small moments of life.

Lesson 2: Life is long

The 48 hours waiting for the results of her quarterly scans were the longest moments.

Life stopped for two days. I could not breathe. I could not think.

Each minute stretched out into hours.

The early mornings in the hospital waiting room, sleeping on chairs, working hunched over while my eyes burned from the lack of sleep, were the longest days.

Waiting to hear if Ariana’s surgery was successful.

Folding laundry after she died. It took time to cycle all her clothes through the dirty laundry. Each item of clothing brought with it decades of memories. Thirty minutes folding those clothes felt like I was reliving those decades. Folding in a vacuum, a void, outside of time.

Lesson 3: You Are Not The Main Character

Three weeks after Ariana died, someone asked how I was doing.

I told the truth. I said I was drowning, that I couldn’t breathe, that I didn’t know how to keep going.

Their face went blank. They looked at their watch and remembered they had to be somewhere.

I learned to lie after that. “I’m okay. Taking it one day at a time.”

Their relief was instant.

I started performing my grief so they could stay comfortable.

It wasn’t until later I realized, just like my writing, everyone was filtering my pain through their own sh*t. It wasn’t about me. It was about them.

They were the main character in their story.

No one is paying attention to you as much as you are paying attention to yourself.

This means you get to have freedom from performance.

Writing publicly for so long has opened me up to heavy criticism. I used to stress over writing everything as clear as I could. I would ruminate on each word choice, carefully selecting which one conveyed exactly how I was feeling.

Then I realized, that isn’t my job.

My writing is personal and filtered through my life experience and worldview. The words I put on the page will hit every person differently, filtered through their life experience and worldview.

Everyone will construct a slightly different idea of “CJ the narrator.”

My goal became writing what felt important to me, getting the words from my head onto the screen. And what each person took away from it was personal to them.

Life is…Life

Ariana and I are laying on the bed. Kids distracted from getting ready for bed. The feelings were heavy. We found out that day she was terminal.

The tears had been wiped away and I turned on the camera to capture the moment.

In the video you see three tiny children being children. Crying. Goofing around. Not doing what they are supposed to be doing.

Parents yelling at them.

House a mess.

And two people whose future had been ripped away from them, but are sitting in the stillness of it. Life was still moving forward even if the countdown timer had started.

We were laughing and joking, even about her dying. We were, unabashedly, us.

The moment was short, fleeting, but sweet. Even though that day felt like we just lived a year from the doctor’s office, to learning she was dying, crying together. Sitting in disbelief and anger, to the mundane night of just trying to be parents.

We didn’t have to perform for the kids. We were sad, laughing, and annoyed.

And most importantly we didn’t have to perform for each other and ourselves. Ariana had the superhuman ability to take life as it came and never let it stop her from living. And in that night, she didn’t act out her fear to make me feel better. She laughed, made jokes and just lived.

Your life is whipping by you, from one long moment to the other. A stubbed toe can make those next 30 seconds slow down.

You are not the main character in everyone else’s life, so be the witness, act like it in your own.

Moments are long. Days are short.

- CJ

P.S. If this resonated and you’re tired of performing your grief for people who don’t understand it, struggling to find yourself in your grief, I work with grievers ready to stop waiting for permission and start rebuilding on their own terms.

I have a group opening up early next year. Sign up to get on the waitlist now.

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I walked to the couch and sat down at the end closest to the window. I squirmed as I adjusted the pillows, trying to find a position comfortable enough to get through the session.

My hand fixed on the armrest. I rubbed and scratched at the grey fabric.

“So, how was your week?” she started. “I’m a piece of shit. I hate my body. I hate my face. I don’t like the way I act and the things I think. I’m broken.”

She wasn’t fazed. She’d heard it before and it wouldn’t be the last time.

“Ok, where do you want to start?”

I paused.

“I want to vanquish them all. All the thoughts, insecurities, and pain. I don’t want to feel any of it. I want to heal it. All the parts of me that are broken. I want to sew them up into a tapestry of resilience, endurance, and ‘I-do-not-give-a-f*ck’”

The battle had begun. Me versus the parts I hated.

I knew, to heal, I needed to remove those parts and only then find the healing I was desperately looking for.

Anything less was failure.

So, I continued to increase the standards I held for myself.

There was no letting myself off the hook. No letting myself slide.

It was all or nothing. Perfection or brokenness.

If I did let up, then I felt like I was hurting the people around me.

I was flawed. I made mistakes. I was angry, cruel, mean, stubborn, and annoying.

It all had to go, otherwise why would they stick around? There would be nothing to love.

As Ariana laid on the hospital bed—dying—I saw the only good part of me fading away. She was the only reason I had worth, value, or anything to love.

So when she died, I had nothing. I was nothing.

I woke up each day preparing for the war.

I was exhausted before I took my first step out of bed.

It was maddening. I was breaking. Struggling to keep going.

Then, the world started opening up again after COVID and I saw a mens retreat announced.

I knew the leader and out of desperation for change, I signed up.

I didn’t know what to expect. But it didn’t matter anymore.

I showed up a few months later to a converted barn on the outskirts of Austin. For the next four days I lived with twenty other men.

And in those four days, my anger softened, just enough to let my grief spill out on the floor. Then the unexpected happened—they showed me love and compassion.

They opened up space for me to be exposed with no judgement. They held me and supported me.

It was just enough for me to realize that I was able to be loved and cared for, despite the sh*t in my head.

As you demean yourself daily, wishing for things to change, recognize that isn’t healing. Healing isn’t removal. It’s acceptance of what you wish wasn’t there.

So, what does removal actually cost?

The Hidden Cost of Removal

At the barn in Austin, I was confronted with what I was most afraid of—my anger.

When I think of anger, I get images of men physically harming others. Emotionally intimidating their kids and partners. As well as making the world feel unsafe for everyone around them.

I told myself that would never be me and that meant pretending my anger didn’t exist.

But while I had my face soaked in a stranger’s shirt, the most intense, primal, and guttural sound ripped through me.

I screamed until my throat gave out.

I clenched every muscle in my body.

I cried, swore, growled, and yelled.

What happened next changed all my beliefs about anger.

The group of men gathered around me. They held me. They weren’t afraid. They were broken with me.

I realized anger—and all other emotions—serve their purpose in our lives. I couldn’t let the few who pervert their emotions into harm, create prejudice in my heart.

My anger wasn’t dangerous. It was a natural part of my grief. And ignoring it, meant sacrificing healing.

So, what are you ignoring? What parts are you afraid to let out?

Is it worth the sacrifice?

What would you actually lose if the part you hate disappeared tomorrow?

Acceptance

“That word you keep using, I do not think it means what you think it means.” — Inigo Montoya

Ariana abandoned me and I carried my anger with shame.

I could not accept it, because if I did, it felt like giving up on a better version of myself.

That I would have to learn to “like” that part of me and wasn’t allowed to change it.

I didn’t understand that acceptance was acknowledgement and understanding.

I needed to admit the part existed and give it my attention. And in some cases be grateful for it.

Over time we pick up coping mechanisms that serve to protect us. Those mechanisms linger and stay around for longer than is necessary.

When we recognize them and see that they are no longer serving us, we can gently toss them away.

Because, at the end of the day, you’re not trying to arrive at a version of yourself with no fear, pain, or anger.

That person doesn’t exist.

And if they did, they would be boring as hell.

Life is lived in the wholeness of our human experience.

Light creates shadows.

When you’re whole, all parts are present and have a seat at the table.

F*ck Perfection

A friend said to me, “It’s beautiful that you were able to have experienced the love that you and Ariana shared. Some people never get to. But, also, how lucky for Ariana to have had that love in the short time she was here.”

My wife died. I can’t change that and my friend is right, we are both lucky to have had each other.

I’ve found peace with my situation.

I no longer live as a victim of circumstance. I have power over my story.

Ariana dying was extrinsic.

A singular event.

The pain that occurred was what changed inside me in response to the event.

And that meant, if it was IN me, then I had the power to change it.

As I move along my journey with grief, I find my world opening to possibilities I never imagined.

The depth of love I feel now is rich and complex. The connection to my children, friends, and family are deeper.

And it’s all because of the work I did to change my relationship to grief.

Healing is harder than war, I know.

War is familiar.

The hatred is easy.

Acceptance requires you to lay down your weapons. It opens you up to rejection and hurt.

But understand, the war is killing you. And the parts you’re fighting, they are you.

You cannot win.

So stop trying to remove what you hate. Start trying to understand why it’s there.

Healing is not about becoming less. It’s about becoming whole.

With love,

- CJ

This shift from war to wholeness took me years to figure out.

I spent many thousands on therapy, read every grief book, joined communities, and made every mistake trying to rebuild my identity after Ariana died.

I’m distilling all of that into a 12-week workshop for a small-group of grievers ready to stop fighting themselves and start rebuilding who they are now.

It’s not about “moving on.” It’s about learning to carry your loss while creating space for meaning, joy, and a future that feels real.

If you’re interested, join the waitlist here. I’ll send details and early access when spots open.

P.S. If you’re not ready for a workshop but want to start this work on your own, I made a free guide called Recovering Your Identity After Loss. Get it here.

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I turned the burner on. Oil hissed in the pan.

The sink was filled with an avalanche of plates. I let the faucet run over the pile and started rinsing. Halfway through, the pan began to crackle, followed by another, steadier sound.

“Shit!”

I had left the laundry sink running.

Water spilled over the lip, soaked the cabinets, pushed through the floor into the basement.

I killed the stove.

Threw towels on the floor.

I ran downstairs. Then upstairs. Then back down.

Hours later, I collapsed on my bedroom floor. Dinner was uncooked. The house was damp.

I stared at the ceiling and wondered how I’d do it all again tomorrow.

That’s what “normal” looks like in early grief. No spare brainpower. Only survival.

You survive.

You Are In Survival

Early grief is survival.

Your brain has changed. It doesn’t work like it used to.

Your body is on high alert. Exhausted with no energy to spare.

A grocery run feels like a cross-country trip.

The only goal is to make it back to bed.

That’s it. It is all you are capable of.

Answering “How can I help?” feels like sympathy, not empathy.

One shouts down the well. The other lowers a ladder.

Don’t Ask. Do.

If you truly want to help someone, and the offer isn’t posturing–then just do.

Pick something. Show up. Do it.

They won’t tell you what they need because others have failed them before, so trust is low.

Earn their trust.

Don’t ask. Do.

What Can I Do?

Remember, their world was shattered. They are frantically feeling around in the dark for the right pieces to pick back up.

So, the small things land big.

Here are a few examples:

• Have their kids over for dinner.

• Leave groceries at their front door.

• Clean their house, or hire someone to clean.

• When you send a text, checking in, include the phrase, “No need to reply.”

• Drive their kids to appointments, or friends’ houses.

• Go watch a movie with them. Silence is fine.

• Listen to their pain. Don’t judge or try to “solve” it.

• Don’t stop asking them to hang out. Eventually that “no” will be a “yes.”

Take the thinking off their plate.

Tell them when, where, and how you will show up for them.

You can do it without intruding.

Some people will want you to literally show up and others might need a heads up.

Honor their rhythms and boundaries.

How Do I Know They Want It?

Here’s the truth: you won’t really know if they want your help.

But it’s easier to say, “no,” than it is for them to think of something they need.

Show up in their life. Don’t require them to show up for you.

Be helpful without expecting reciprocation.

Listen and don’t speak.

Don’t ask. Do.

Small things save heavy days.

- CJ

P.S. If you are watching a friend or loved one struggle in their grief, I wrote Torn Pages From A Broken Heart which shows the reality of what it is living with acute grief. It will help give understanding what they are going through.

What ways have you helped others?

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I wrote this letter to my children while they were out living their lives. I don’t know if I’ll ever give it to them. And not because it isn’t true, but because some truths need to be lived out loud.

To my children,

This was never the life I wanted for you. You lost your Mom and in the process lost a piece of your Dad.

You had to learn to be adults too soon.

You had to learn that adults fail and break promises.

You had to learn that adults struggle as much as you.

And worst of all, you had to experience that pain co-exists with the magic of life.

When You Were Born, I Was Terrified

The day each of you were born was the scariest day of my life.

I watched Mommy’s heroic efforts delivering you.

I saw her power and knew, I couldn’t live without her.

I witnessed the painful process of you coming into this world.

You were brave, strong, and fragile.

When it was time for me to became a Dad, I promised to protect you and love you without hesitation.

But the promise felt too big, because I was afraid of all the ways I would fail you.

The Night Mommy Saved Me

You have seen glimpses growing up how wholly I have struggled with depression and anxiety.

After you were born, the weight of my world collapsed around me.

I began believing you and Mommy would be better off without me. I was convinced that I was too much of a burden. I was sure my presence in your life would do more harm than good.

I was a broken boy trying to be a whole man.

One night, deep into the winter, Mommy and I were in our living room. You were sleeping upstairs in your cribs.

With the soft lights of the Christmas tree behind me, I sat on the floor and told Mommy I was too broken. I begged her to take you and escape me.

In that moment, she jumped off the couch. Her hands wrapped around my face and she kept repeating, “You’re not broken.” My eyes flooded as my heart sank.

She never left my side, even in the darkest days.

Preparing For The World To End

After Mommy’s terminal diagnosis, I spent the next five years trying to prepare you for it. Each time you fought, I would remind you that we are a team and would need each other someday.

I wanted to build our strength to hold each other, before it was necessary for survival.

Mommy held us together. And when she was gone, we would have to hold each other together.

She protected us until her last moment. She did everything to keep the inward pain to herself, never letting it steal the joy and time we had left.

You are the gifts I’ve been given for the pain I have suffered. You carry her same strength, love, and power. It is there, always, for you to access.

You are her.

On Failing Those You Love

Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s not the failure that defines you. It’s the choice to repair.

This lesson was exemplified by the three of you.

I know I have failed you in many ways.

Whether it was all the painful lessons you were the recipients of as I learned to date.

The many nights I locked myself in my room–crying–when I fell so deep into my grief that I could barely even feed you.

Or the anger I carried around, when I was overwhelmed watching Mommy slowly die and I screamed at you. Scared you. Shamed you.

Despite it all, you have shown an undying compassion and forgiveness towards me.

You have taught me how to be a better dad, friend, and man.

Please, don’t take this lightly.

I am wholly better having you as my children.

And I will take all that compassion and forgiveness and magnify it in the world. I will show others that they are not alone.

Everything you have given me, I will use in my calling to help others.

You Are Whole; You Are You

I know you hurt, even when you don’t show it. But I will always be here to catch your tears and hold your pain.

We have been a team for seventeen years and became a team of four for the last five.

You are in the beginning phases of building a life outside our home.

You are discovering all the uniqueness and beauty you possess.

You are pushing against your boundaries and finding yourselves.

I will always miss our little team and hearing your laughter in our home, but I couldn’t be more proud.

You are truly, the most amazing kids and brilliantly beautiful humans.

My heart grows heavy thinking of our time spent traveling.

Our late night conversations at the kitchen counter.

And the shared pain we felt celebrating the anniversaries of Mommy’s death.

But the pride, love, and connection I feel to you far surpass the heaviness.

You are my soul, my heart, and my loves.

One ask as you build your own lives: carry your mother and me in your hearts.

No matter if we are here or not.

And thank you for your patience, forgiveness, and lessons.

My deepest gratitude and all my love,

- Pookie

P.S. If you’re carrying the weight of how you showed up—or didn’t—for your kids while you were lost in grief, I wrote Torn Pages From A Broken Heart which aims to help you know that you are not alone.

Where have you found forgiveness, grace, and compassion in your life?

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No chute. No line. Just falling.

Everything went white and my vision cut out.

I felt cold, wet ground beneath me. I opened my eyes and saw the forest canopy stretching to the sky. The sun did its best to find me.

Disoriented and scared, I began dissolving into the forest floor.

And for a moment, the world around me stopped.

The ground shook, clearing the leaves where my body had been.

A garden began to emerge filled with vibrant orchids, lilies, and tomatoes, too exact to be wild.

The cold and fear turned to warmth and peace.

Then a voice whispered, “On my count, return to your breath and when you’re ready, open your eyes.”

I blinked my eyes open. Salt had dried on my face.

I was consumed with thoughts that I was not good enough.

I believed I was only worth as much as the money, status, looks, and sexual prowess I could bring to a relationship.

The externals were the only thing that mattered, because inside I felt broken.

I kept raising the bar for what I believed I had to be.

Chasing a moving goalpost shrank my love into a sealed, opaque container.

Protection over connection.

My wife was dead, and I would joke it was her only escape from me. The joke never landed, but each time I told it, a part of me believed it more.

The constant rumination of my failures and ways I couldn’t measure up haunted me.

But there in the forest, surrounded by life and beauty, I found my worth.

And so, my path to restoration of mind and body began. Because what grew in the garden wasn’t from the things I did or had, it was from who I am.

Your Pricing Model Is Flawed

If you’ve been pricing your worth on moving goalposts, this is the moment to stop.

You are holding onto the same belief that I held: worth must be earned through externals we can provide.

But the truth? Worth is intrinsic.

Externals are masks we use to hide the pain we bury and distract from who we really are.

I started dating my wife when we I was eighteen years old.

She died when I was thirty-five.

The first time I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror after her death, I saw myself instantly age seventeen years.

I was alone.

And I felt every bit my age and more.

You Aren’t Broken, You’re Just Flawed

It can be easy to find compassion for others’ flaws. But we refuse to tolerate our own.

“If I rest, I’ll get lazy.”
You cannot inhale without first exhaling.

”Without proof, I feel fake.”
You have proof, but it’s never enough.

”I’m too broken for them to love me.”
Flaws are human, not brokenness.

You exist with your thoughts 24/7, which amplifies how you see your flaws.
So you try harder to push them away.

You distract yourself.
You numb out.
You overcompensate by exerting more control over your externals.

Because what you can see, you think you can change.

You wash your outside when the cleaning needs to happen inside.

But, you aren’t alone.

I do it.
We all do it.

It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re normal.

“You Must Love Yourself First”

“Love yourself first, before you can be loved” is overly simplistic at best and prohibitively restrictive at worst.

It takes our overactive thoughts about our flaws and makes them louder.
It convinces us that we must rid ourselves of every flaw before we can love ourselves.

Before we can be loved.

It’s just another goalpost. Another achievement we need to have before we feel worthy.

So, no, please don’t think you have to “love yourself first.”

Start developing your ability to extend compassion towards yourself.

And then do what you are most afraid of–deal with your shit.

Dig into the pain you have been avoiding.

Speak out loud the parts you hate.

The more you run away, the stronger your resistance becomes.

The more you run towards the pain, the deeper appreciation you have for your worth.

We are not repulsed by the humanity in a person.

We are repulsed by the dissonance in who they are and what they present.

In my vision, a garden grew where I disappeared. That version of me was built on insecurity and pain. When it dissolved, peace remained.

I carry that experience with me and have to constantly remind myself there is freedom in acceptance, even if it takes great pain, work, and sacrifice to get there.

So next time you feel yourself moving the goalpost, ask yourself: “What am I trying to protect?”

- CJ

What are you running from? 👇🏻

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Though, it could have been any song.

This was my nightly ritual.

Sing.

Cry.

Exhaust myself until I was able to fall asleep.

I didn’t know any other way. She was gone and all that remained was the void she left in my life. I believed the only way to stay close to her was to stay in the pain.

I was lost.

Wandering with no compass, map, or manuals.

My future? It didn’t exist. No matter how desperately I tried crawling my way out of the pit.

So, I accepted it. This was my life now.

Occasionally I would find ways to fill the void.

Laugh with a friend.

Cry with a stranger.

Or go on an adventure with my kids.

But it always ended the same.

Me, on the floor, feeling all the pain that I had been hiding throughout the day.

I was alone.

She was gone.

Doing anything else, like finding joy in the moments we once shared, felt like a betrayal.

My joy remained separate from the life Ariana and I once shared.

It wasn’t until I found myself drowning that I understood: the pain I thought was keeping her close was actually keeping me from her.

I was holding onto the worst of us and calling it love.

If this is you, you’re not broken. You are doing what grief tells you makes sense.

You Are Only Betraying Yourself

It is normal to feel like we must exist in pain, because, after all, what is life without the person we lost.

We hold onto guilt and shame for all the experiences we are still having while they remain dead.

We are pressured to perform our grief for others. Afraid they will judge us if we are not “hurting.”

I spent a year lamenting to my journal about the guilt and pain.

So, if we stay underwater, drowning in our sorrow no one can validate the guilt we feel.

No one can tell us we aren’t suffering.

No one can tell us we didn’t love.

And, to some degree, it is loyal.

You are remaining loyal to the image you have created of your person. Loyal to what you would feel if they were the one left behind.

But, in the end, you are only betraying yourself.

You are walking around with a broken arm (grief) and banging it against the table (suffering), screaming out in pain.

Joy becomes difficult to hold onto when it is accompanied by the shame.

So, there has to be a shift and redefinition of the relationship you once had with them.

They Exist. Only Different.

I was sat on the couch, clenching the edge of the arm rest.

“I feel the connection fading. I am scared to no longer feel her close to me.” I cried to my therapist.

It was a moment of desperation. A moment when my guard fell, too tired to continue to hold up the shield. So, the truth spilled from my lips.

“You are still treating her like she is here. She’s not. CJ. You need to redefine what your connection to her is now.”

The words sharpened as they flew through the air into my heart.

I know she was right. But I didn’t know how to do that.

I still consulted Ariana on decisions with the kids.

Yelled at her.

And begged for her to return.

So, I nodded my head and left the session.

Permission

I didn’t know how to redefine my relationship with Ariana.

I made excuses.

And remained in my suffering, refusing to let it go.

Then, one night, face still in the floor I realized, there was no letting go. I didn’t have to “not feel any pain” to move forward. To find joy.

The pain could exist alongside everything else.

I could hold on to the whole range of who she was.

I could remember the joy AND pain.

I was only missing permission.

Permission to myself to begin living. Even in the smallest way possible.

Permission to not reduce Ariana down to just her death.

She was more than how she died. Your person was more than how they died.

Love isn’t fair. But neither is reducing someone you loved to only their most painful moments.

Their “last words” are not the sum of their life.

They are only a single moment.

Staying close to her meant remembering she was more than the pain.

And so was I.

- CJ

How have you redefined your relationship with the person you lost? 👇🏼

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The day my wife Ariana died, a part of me died with her. Diagnosed with terminal cancer on my 30th birthday, we spent the next five years in a heartbreaking limbo, never knowing which day might be her last.

When she passed on September 30, 2020—right in the pandemic’s grip—I was lost, scared, and utterly alone. Like so many, I wandered through life like a child, stumbling over failures and grasping at half-formed discoveries.

Most people try to “move on” from grief, burying the pain to survive. But I learned that’s the wrong path. Moving forward while honoring it takes intentional effort. It is the daily rituals that rebuild without erasing.

That’s what this space is for: to guide those who feel that truth in their bones, and the loved ones walking beside them, toward those very tools.

What You’ll Find Here

• Blunt truths: about grief, without platitudes or “stay strong” clichés.

• Stories: from my life as a widowed dad raising three kids through loss.

• Practical guidance: for navigating the daily grind of grief: parenting, work, friendships, mental health.

• Post-traumatic growth: not as toxic positivity, but as the messy, non-linear process of discovering who you are becoming.

• Community: voices of grievers who refuse to walk this road alone.

Who I Write For

• Newly bereaved, still shocked and searching for survival tools.

• Year 1–3 grievers, realizing the second year can be harder than the first.

• Widowed parents, juggling grief and parenting guilt.

• Supporters and caregivers, trying to figure out what to actually say and do.

• Leaders at work, who want to show up better for grieving employees.

If any of that feels like you, you’re in the right place.

Where to Begin

Here are a few posts to start with:

• How I Learned Breaking is an Option

• Self-Care Is A Lie: What grief actually requires from you

• To Be A Good Parent, Become Obsolete

Join the Community

Every week I publish essays, notes, and practical reflections. Subscribers get it all free. Paid supporters (coming soon) will get extra deep dives, live sessions, and journaling tools.

Subscribe to receive Project Grief directly in your inbox.

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And one more thing, don’t just read. Hit “reply” to any issue and share your story. That’s how this becomes more than words on a screen. That’s how we remind each other we’re not alone.

Final Note

Grief isn’t a problem to solve.

It’s a process to discover.

Together.

With love,

- CJ

She always preferred to have the bright vanity lights on in the bathroom, but being the vampire that I am, I preferred they remained off while we got ready for bed. There was something so harsh and unnerving about bright lights.

I opened the drawer and reached for the floss. Grabbing one end, I began to pull, then cut it with the dull blade embedded in the case. I wrapped one end of the floss around my finger and then the other.

Looking up in the mirror I saw Ariana looking at me. There was an unfamiliar look on her face. Her eyes scrunched. My hands began to sweat, the floss slipping as my heart thumped louder.

I searched my brain, looking for any infraction that might have upset her. There was none to find.

"Oh no, has her cancer spread again? That's what it is, it must be."

The silence grew heavy. I nodded my head in a way that said, "Yea? What is it?"

Her mouth finally opened:

“Do you ever feel like the walls are falling down around you? That everyone you care about is getting sick?”

Denial and Defensiveness

I stopped flossing, my hands still in the air and the floss caught between my teeth.

Okay, it's not the cancer, but do I feel that way?

Through the floss I mumbled out, "No."

“Really? I think you’re lying to yourself," she challenged.

My hands dropped to the counter, floss still stuck in my teeth.

It was an honest answer. Sure, two people I care about are battling cancer. But I’m not special. My life isn’t any harder than anyone else's. I'm strong. I can handle this.

“I don’t know, babe. I think I’m doing okay." My voice was less confident this time.

“You’re not doing okay, but whatever,” she said, heading to bed.

"Denial isn't failure. It's survival."

The Walls Begin to Crack

My stomach knotted. I crawled into bed, staring at the ceiling while Ariana scrolled on her phone.

I am okay. Right? I mean, I'm strong. I can handle her and my dad dying. I can't believe she called me out like that.

I squeezed my eyes closed, hoping it would shut out the thoughts and the light from Ariana's bedside lamp.

It didn't.

The thoughts spun faster. I tossed back and forth until I finally jumped out of bed.

“Ok, fine. Whatever." I snapped.

"Maybe the walls are crumbling around me, but I can’t stop thinking about us both dying–that by some anti-miracle we both go and the kids are left alone. Or that I have to raise them on my own. That I'll have to crawl into bed without you. That I'll wake up every morning thinking it was a nightmare."

I paused. She stayed silent.

“And now my dad has cancer too? What the hell am I supposed to do with this? How am I supposed to feel?”

Ariana's Truth

“CJ, I knew you weren’t okay. Why lie to me? Why lie to yourself?” She asked.

“Because you’re already carrying so much. If I tell you how scared and broken I am, it only adds to your burden. I can’t live without you, but I don’t want to put that weight on you.” I cried.

“I’ve made peace with dying. I know you haven’t. It doesn’t help me if you hide the truth.”

“I know. But I keep trying to convince myself this pain has a purpose. That maybe we’re supposed to help others. That maybe my dad is the first person we’ll get to help.”

I sighed and slid back into bed.

“I know,” Ariana said softly. “I’m scared for you too. I can’t imagine being in your shoes. I’m glad I’m the one leaving, because I couldn’t live without you.”

We hugged.

“Goodnight, babe. I love you.” She said.

“I love you too.”

She turned off the light. I closed my eyes and finally fell asleep.

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Lessons in Survival and Strength

The insistence that I was okay wasn’t denial of the truth. It was survival. It was the only way I could keep moving when everything felt impossible.

Holding it together in the most extreme situations often requires a little delusion. It's not weakness. It's being human.

But real strength came when I finally cracked. When I let the fear spill out instead of swallowing it.

Silence never saved me. Admitting “I can’t do this alone” did.

That’s where the intimacy lives. That's where the people who love you finally get to meet the real you.

Isolation builds walls. Honesty breaks them down.

So if you wake up every day trying to convince others you’re fine when you’re not, it doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re human, buying yourself time.

And when you finally let the cracks show? That isn’t the end of your strength. That’s the beginning of it.

Sometimes the most healing thing you can do is stop pretending and let someone hold the mess.

You don’t need to move on. You don’t even need to hold it together. Let yourself fall apart. Then notice the pieces that are worth picking back up.

- CJ

If you want to read more stories like this one, my book Torn Pages From a Broken Heart tell's the raw and messy truth of life in grief. It's the truest thing I’ve written.

What moments have you felt like the walls were caving in? What helped you through it?

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I walked into the kitchen to see the kids off to school. I expected to find three kids finishing breakfast, but instead, I found two boys wrestling on the kitchen floor and not getting ready for school.

The bus was on its way, and they didn't even have their shoes on.

My fist slammed the counter, "What are you doing? Get ready for school. Are you f*cking kidding me?"

The words hung in the air.

The regret began worming its way through my body.

Quietly, they got up, put their shoes on, and grabbed their backpacks.

I heard the front door close and a whimpered, "Bye."

A Family Apart

My three kids were under the age of 12 when my wife, Ariana, died.

The deeper the grief settled into my system, the more I became absorbed in my own head and loss.

Our family of five became roommates of four.

Nightly dinners at the kitchen table turned into grabbing whatever food was in the fridge and numbing ourselves in front of the TV.

Together. Eating alone.

The kitchen table represented a symbol of family and wholeness.

So, I avoided the table as much as I would avoid eating a bowl full of glass.

I had to learn new ways to bring us together.

Starting with capitalizing on moments we all found ourselves in the same room.

Like our late night snacking around the kitchen counter.

Anger in Small Cuts

The overwhelm I experienced in grief spilled into the paper cuts I inflicted with words all over my children's bodies.

The everyday annoyances felt like crimes against me.

What used to be moments for lessons were now opportunities to loudly proclaim my disappointment, frustration, and anger.

My kids were no longer little humans I enjoyed, but obstacles in my way as I desperately searched for a way out of a life I never wanted.

They needed me. More of me than I was capable of giving.

I was one parent, not two. Each day, at a minimum, I was leaving one child disappointed as I weighed the priorities of whose needs were most important.

Life, for them, became a lottery, a moment-by-moment wondering, "Will my Daddy meet my needs today?"

Confessions of an Overreaching Dad

I would overshare my feelings with the kids, crossing emotional boundaries.

I would burden them with my guilt of failing as their Dad, leaving them to reassure me and convince me otherwise.

But hey, it was all in the name of "transparency."

They knew I was drowning.

I wanted to validate that.

But I crossed the line.

The moment my wife died, I became keenly aware of how important it was for me to ensure my kids did not become a replacement wife, my emotional support.

We were a team, but I began involving them too deeply in my decisions.

What started as a check-in to make sure they were okay, ended with me making all personal decisions based on how they felt.

My kids began to dictate the choices I was making.

The boundary had blurred.

The Inescapable Zombie

Grief takes the last remaining parts of ourselves and grinds them into a concoction of confusion and pain.

The physical toll it takes and the emotional burden placed on us create many moments of failure.

It's an inescapable zombie that will never die.

It is the initiation into our new, unformed lives, to learn and rediscover who we are.

To forgive ourselves, all the stumbles and falls through the hardest terrain imaginable.

One night, while rocking on my bed in an attempt to calm my overactive nervous system, I started to spiral.

The breathing techniques and thought re-frames had no effect, and the longer this went on, the harder it became to get oxygen into my lungs.

Out of desperation, I grabbed my phone—ready to call 911—but instead, I texted my daughter, "I need you. Please hurry."

A few moments later, my door opened, and she walked in to see her dad in a full panic.

"I couldn't save her. I couldn't save her," I screamed.

She said nothing.

Only held me.

Slowly my breathing returned. My body calmed and stopped convulsing.

I thanked my daughter, told her I loved her, and put her back to bed.

She held me together when I was unable to hold myself. It was then I knew I had to find a way to hold her, too.

Our children understand the unspoken language of grief just as much as we do.

They don't need us to be perfect parents in our grief.

Even in our worst failures, the commitment to keep showing up matters more than the perfection we'll never reach.

- CJ

If you want to read more about how I navigated parenting in my grief, you can order my book, Torn Pages from a Broken Heart.

What are some lessons you learned parenting in grief? Leave a comment and share.

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If you enjoyed this read, the best compliment I could receive would be if you shared it with one person or restacked it.

Now, you can help even more.

If you invite friends to join us, you’ll not only grow this community, but you’ll also unlock special rewards as my thank you.

How it works:

1. Share Project Grief. When you use the referral link below, or the “Share” button on any post, you'll get credit for any new subscribers. Simply send the link in a text, email, or share it on social media with friends.

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2. Earn rewards. The more friends who subscribe through your link, the more you unlock:

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Every person you invite is another grieving soul who doesn’t have to feel isolated, silenced, or stuck. That’s the real reward.

Thank you for helping me get this work into the hands and hearts of more people who need it.

With deep gratitude,

CJ

I couldn’t talk.

I could only cook.

I gripped the knife in my right hand and steadied the tomato in my left. Carefully, I peeled the skin back, laid each strip flat on a baking sheet, and slid it into the oven.

I was exhausted from another sleepless night. A bed made for two. One warm side, the other cold.

Ariana was gone.

My dad was gone.

All that remained were their tools: my dad’s knives and Ariana’s stand mixer.

I cooked for him. I baked for her. It was my connection to their ghosts.

Every time I started one of those marathon kitchen sessions—sometimes a day, sometimes three—I called on them. My grief poured into the food with one goal: to feed the people who were still here.

Sometimes Grief is Nonverbal

Early in my grief, my mouth failed me. Thoughts stayed locked in my head; words snagged in my throat. I felt alone and isolated, even when people showed up. “How are you?” was impossible to answer.

So I gave them food for their bellies instead of words for their ears.

I spent years cooking my way through chef Massimo Bottura’s recipes. His words summed it up in six simple words: “Cooking is an act of love.”

That's exactly what I had been doing.

Showing love and gratitude when grief made me mute.

Because grief scrambles more than your emotions. It seizes your body, your brain, your voice. Searching for words is exhausting. Repeating “thank you” for the hundredth time is hollow.

Finding a Language of Love

Even when I was in the kitchen for 12 hours straight, it gave my grief somewhere to go. My hands worked while my mind went quiet. I didn’t need language; the meal said it for me.

Cooking was my language of love. Yours might look different.

If words fail you, here are other ways to speak love without speaking at all:

1. Make a playlist that tells your person’s story and share it.

2. Invite someone over for a movie. No talking required.

3. Write a short note. Work on it slowly, when you have the energy.

4. Send a small gift. Flowers, a gift card, anything simple.

5. Text two words: “Thank you.” That’s enough.

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to Project Grief and show your support.

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Permission

Grief will overwhelm you.

It’s the nature of loss.

It is not weakness.

Find the ways you can still nurture the relationships that matter, even when words collapse.

You’re allowed to laugh while you ache. You’re allowed to love while you hurt.

Grief stole my words.

But love still found its way through the knife, through the oven, and through the plate.

That’s how I kept moving forward.

One meal at a time.

- CJ

If you want to read more about the first year after losing my wife, Ariana, you can order my book, Torn Pages from a Broken Heart.

Have you found your language of love? Leave a comment and share.

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On the first day back to school–weeks after their mom died–I broke the rule I swore I'd model.

I pressed my palms into my eyes, sighed, pasted on a smile, and walked into the kitchen.

"It's Breast Cancer Awareness Week at school. If you need to leave, tell the teacher; I'll come right away."

"Okay," my daughter said while my two boys began wrestling in the kitchen.

I clenched my jaw and grabbed the edge of the counter, digging and scraping my nails on the unfinished stone underneath.

The noise from the wrestling grew.

It's just me now. Every joy. Every meltdown. Every defiance.

Something in me snapped. "DAMMIT, STOP NOW AND GET READY!" The words left my mouth before I knew I'd chosen them.

They hung there, heavy, and hardened into shame. I slid down the cabinet to the tile floor and tried to quiet the tremor in my hands.

The boys tied their shoes in silence. My daughter whispered, "Bye, Daddy," and the door closed.

That night, my son asked, "Daddy, are you okay?"

I almost lied. "I'm...o..."

"No, buddy," I said instead. "I'm scared. I feel broken. I miss Mommy." He stared back at me in silence.

"I failed you today. I'm so sorry. I love you."

"It's okay, Daddy," he said, nodding, reaching for my hand to pull me in for a hug.

Your kids need your honesty. I learned that by hurting the people I love, then learning to repair the harm. Here's how.

The 2-Minute Repair Script

It doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out conversation. Repair can happen as quickly as the rupture that broke the connection.

TL;DR: Don’t perform “fine.” When you blow it, repair in 2 minutes: Regulate, Own, Share, Validate, Apologize, Plan, Reconnect.

1. Regulate first: slow exhale, drop shoulders.

2. Name it (own it): “I yelled. That was scary.”

3. Share inside (age-appropriate): “I’m sad and overwhelmed.”

4. Validate: “It is normal if you felt scared or mad.”

5. Apologize (no ‘but’): “I’m sorry I yelled.”

6. Tiny plan: “Let’s try again. I'll speak calmly and help with your shoes.”

7. Reconnect ritual: hug/hand squeeze/inside joke.

   • Teen Variation: For teens, offer space first; for littles, keep words short and concrete.

Name your feeling, never your child as the cause. Keep adult details out. Short and concrete for younger children. Choice and space for teens.

If they're not ready to repair, tell them, "I hear you. I'll check back in 20 minutes. I'm here if you want me."

If you can't regulate: step away, hold an ice cube, or text a friend.

The Rupture

I ruptured the connection between myself and my kids that morning. In my grief, those ruptures spiked as my emotional and physical load far exceeded my capacity.

In grief, my kids turned into a task, not people. Shame hardened and made me smaller.

The Repair

That night, I owned up to my mistakes. It didn't take away the moment I scared my children, but it repaired the broken connection.

This is rupture and repair. It's normal.

The goal isn't perfection; it's modeling how relationships heal.

We fail. Every day. In ways big and small.

We either sink deeper into those failures, or we learn from them. And modeling our learning to our kids through vulnerability gives them the tools to navigate their own emotions.

Kids sync to us. When we slow our breathing, theirs often follows. Calm can be contagious.

When You're Overwhelmed

There are (many) times when you will be overwhelmed, especially in acute grief.

• Find a phrase or action that lets you pause.

• Clarify with your kids what it means.

• Put it into practice starting today.

For me, I landed on "I'm done parenting for the day. I'll be back in 5 minutes. You're safe."

Parenting is hard. Parenting in grief is its own thing.

Real > Fine. Repair > Performance.

- CJ

Are you performing “fine?” Comment below and let me know a phrase or action you use when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

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