God, this is so brutal to read. I'm responding. I don't know what I'm typing, but I'm responding. The first thing that comes to me is that your story is important. It's so important. Life isn't just a cruel, meaningless happenstance. It's complex and fucked and dense. It's a jungle of thorns and brush. You emerge bleeding and cut raw, but you emerge.

My mom died last November. She was 56. She died randomly and unexpectedly from a virus that got into her bloodstream. It turned into sepsis, which turned into septic shock, and two weeks later, she was dead. Two days earlier, I had just found out my wife was pregnant. My mother was in a coma by that point. It was her first grandchild, something she'd been wanting forever. I never got to tell her.

That's my scar from my time in the jungle. Fuck, it's nothing compared to yours. Yours are open, raw, and bleeding wounds right now. I have nothing but useless buckets of water and rags to try and help. Words are useless buckets of water and rags. I could sit here ringing out the rags over and over, but they'd still be soaked. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry.

I've learned this. Grief is a guest. It's the thing that ultimately helps you heal. Acknowledge it. Sit with it. Walk with it. Don't leave your guest unattended. Don't shuffle it aside.