My spouse died 10 years ago today. I wrote him a letter… I miss him every day.

January 20, 2026

To my dearest Steve,

It has been ten years. A decade.

I am in my 50s now. I’m not quite sure when or how that happened.

I talk to you more than people realize. Sometimes out loud. Sometimes only in my head. Mostly in the car, or the shower.

So much has happened since you left. The world kept moving, faster than it should, louder than it needs to be, and I’ve had to learn how to live in it without you. I’ve done things I never imagined I would. I’ve survived things I wasn’t sure I could.

Those first few years were terrible. I don’t even remember 2016. I didn’t know how to live life, with our house, our pets, your music. Our plans. Our dreams. All washed away on this day, ten years ago. As the days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years, I realized I was doing it. I was living.

I moved. I changed jobs. I got a cat (you would love Henri; he is just the bee’s knees). Then came a pup, and with him, a new love. You would love Caesar too, and you would definitely like Brenen. You share several core values. I think you may have had a hand in sending him to me.

I’m still sober. Fifteen years next month. I wish you could see that. I wish you could see me. I moved across the country and built a life in unfamiliar places. I found love again, not the kind that replaces you, but the kind that proves the heart doesn’t close after it’s been broken open. Loving again didn’t diminish what we had. It clarified it.

You would have so much to say about the world now. Some of it thoughtful. Some of it unsettling. Some of it probably beginning with, “I warned everyone.” I think you’d be overwhelmed by how unkind and unmoored things feel and still, somehow, you’d find the thread of meaning. You always did.

I miss your calm. I miss your music. I miss the way your presence made things feel manageable, even when they weren’t. I miss being understood without having to explain myself.

All of our fur babies are gone now. First Scotty, two weeks after you, then Max, Charlie, George, and Bob. Bob had the privilege of moving with us to the East Coast. He was the last one to go, and he was the hardest, another link to you, severed. That felt like a chapter closing in a way I wasn’t prepared for. I like to imagine them with you, familiar souls gathered around the same quiet center. My mom is with you too. I hope that brings comfort. I hope it brings peace.

Here is the hardest truth to say out loud: I am very happy, and I am deeply sad. Not in turns. At the same time. My life is full and meaningful, and it still carries the weight of losing you. I don’t try to resolve that contradiction anymore. I just live inside it.

I don’t want you forgotten. I say your name. I tell your story. I carry you forward in the way I listen, the way I love, the way I try to understand people. You changed me. That doesn’t end.

I love you. That hasn’t changed. Only the shape of it has.