This is the fourth year since your son died
This is the fourth year since your son died.
You wonder where the time has gone, and wonder if it’d be cliche to say it sometimes still feels like yesterday.
You think about the other day in the car with your husband beside you as you drove to a new brunch place—it’d been so long since you’d had time or energy to go out together. Your daughter was babbling to herself in the backseat when you said, “I think it’s time to remove him from our phone plan.”
It came out of the blue. You don’t know why you said it then. You didn’t think it would affect you anymore.
“We don’t have to,” your husband replied. “It’s fine. We don’t have to. There’s no rush.”
“It’s been four years. He’s not coming back.”
Then tears blurred your view of the tree-lined streets and cars in front of you.
It’s the fourth year since your beloved died.
For some reason, you thought this year wouldn’t be as bad. For some reason, part of you thought maybe the old adage was true: that time would heal all wounds. After all, people whose children die don’t lie around crying for the rest of their lives. They learn to maneuver around the child-shaped hole(s).
You have, anyway.
You think.
But then, it’s those unexpected moments—when grief hits you sideways—that make you feel like you haven’t moved a second from that instance you heard the flatline.
Those moments you don’t see coming.
Like when you were watching Rogue One and Mads Mikkelsen showed up and suddenly you remembered watching Hannibal with your son—how much he loved that show and how you two never got to finish it before he died.
How you let yourself cry after your husband fell asleep that night.
You try not to think about it too often—your anchor. You know what it is, but no one else does. If they did, they would know how tenuous your hold on life was, and have you committed again. That wouldn’t do.
No, your anchor isn’t going anywhere that you can foresee so far.
The problem is, you know foresight doesn’t exist.
Providence, God, or fate—whichever it is—can snatch your anchor from your grasping fingers in a single breath.
And every day, every moment, you’re praying,
“Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t, please. Please.”
Just like you did when he was dying over the phone.
Your simplistic faith was shattered that night. Now you read this verse often:
That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases.
So it says in Mark 1:32-34.
All came, yet not all were healed.
You think, I know.
I know. But still, why not my child?
And the truth is, you don’t have conviction in your prayers anymore. The truth is, you no longer believe your words have any power to change cosmic will. Yet you still do it anyway—pray, I mean—and you admit to God these heretical thoughts.
You hope your honesty is enough for now.
It’s the fourth year since your soulmate died.
You still can’t get rid of his phone.
You still hug his hoodies.
You don’t wait for him to text you back.
You don’t try to comfort him in the night.
He doesn’t need you anymore.
You write because he believed in you. You go out and you see people. You smile and laugh. Until it feels natural. Until you can believe it’s real.
And like that, day after day, you get through another year.
The anchor holds.
About Me: I’m Tiffany, a literary fiction, fantasy, and memoir author. My writing has been published by The Cultivation Project and Renewal Missions. I’ve been writing this publication, The Untangling, since 2023. Order my books here or here.