A letter to my nephew
Monday, June 2nd marked 18 months since we lost my nephew, Samson.
That sentence doesn’t even feel real when I write it. Time has had a strange way of moving since this loss. Some days it feels like it’s flying by faster than I can comprehend, other days it drags, heavy with the weight of missing him. Yet, somehow – we’ve passed this significant timing milestone – eighteen months – without his laughter, his passion for life, his silly antics, his presence…
I’m now 31 years old. Turning 30 seemed terrible, not because I was aging – I was entering an entirely new decade, and Samson wouldn’t physically be apart of it. I can’t stop thinking lately about what it means to face the rest of my life without Samson in it. Decades of birthdays, holidays, everyday moments-without him. Primarily not seeing the experiences he should have. Graduation, college, career, establishing his own family. That thought feels suffocating. It’s like staring down a long dark road that stretches far too long, knowing that while you trek it, a piece of your heart is always missing along the journey.
When Samson died, it shattered the world as I knew it. I knew from the start that time would help, but wouldn’t help me heal. That each month passing would lessen the frequency of pain, but not necessarily the severity of the pain. But now, 18 months in, I’ve learned something else. The pain doesn’t go away, but it certainly does become a part of you.
I’m different. There are two parts of me that I know, the part of me that existed before-and who I am now. Those two people think differently, process differently, prioritize differently. They don’t know each other.
Grief, I am learning, isn’t something you “get through”. It’s something you learn to carry. And some days, it’s unbearably heavy. Especially the days when you look ahead and wonder, ‘how will I ever do this for the next 40, 50, or even 60 years?’ How can the world keep turning when it was destroyed?
How does life keep moving when purpose is gone?
I still see Samson in many ways. In the way the sun feels warm as we move into summer. In the painted sunsets that fill me with awe, and leave me wondering what Samson is seeing right now. In the random moments of silence that bring my mind to his memory. IN the conversations with friends and coworkers about sports, children. Or the mentioning of a tragedy.
He’s not here, but he’s in everything I see.
It’s hard to fully explain the extent of the loss. To grieve someone so deeply, to wake up every day with the ache of knowing their absence. To long for what could have been – what should have been – To wonder who they would have grown to be and do. To feel robbed of watching that unfold, and supporting them along the way.
Sometimes I feel stuck between gratitude and heartbreak. Grateful to have loved him, to have known him, to share his story forward with me. But heartbroken beyond words that I’ll never get to see his accomplishments and the rest of his life.
The road is long, and tiring. The milestones are hard. But it’s okay to sit in the sadness, to feel the weight of it, to name it. Greif is the only physical remnant I have for my love of Samson. I will always carry love for Samson.
Eighteen months without him. A lifetime still ahead. And somehow, we have found a way to keep walking – although our pace has changed, and our stride is different now, slower, marked by a limp we never asked for. Still, we keep walking.
