Learning to Breathe Again

It’s been four days since I came home, and already I feel the air closing in around me. The smothering is unbearable. Even though I sleep in the guest room, he still finds ways to press in—to hover, to ask, to exist too close. He says he’s giving me space, but he doesn’t understand what that word means. Space isn’t just distance. It’s quiet. It’s freedom.

The day after I got back was brutal. Halloween. I cried most of the day and well into the night. It’s never been my favorite holiday, but not for the reasons most would think. Twenty-six years ago, on that day, I gave birth to a stillborn baby boy. I don’t think I ever truly dealt with it. I pushed it down so deep I thought it had disappeared—but grief has a way of remembering when you try to forget. Every year, that day returns like a whisper in the dark.

I know God had his reasons. Maybe He needed him more than I did. But still… it’s hard. The ache never really leaves, it just learns to hide.

I don’t know if my husband ever thinks about that day. We’ve never spoken of it. Not once. Our silence says everything words never could.

And yet, I still find myself worrying about him—his moods, his mind, his pain. I shouldn’t. I know that. But when you’ve spent your whole life caring for everyone else, it’s not easy to just stop. My brain is still wired that way. Maybe someday I’ll be able to unlearn it. Maybe that’s part of my healing—rewiring myself to finally care for me.

It’s no one’s fault but mine. I took on the role willingly, not realizing the cost. But now I do. And as painful as it is, I’m finally beginning to see that awareness as a kind of freedom. Maybe one day we’ll all heal from this—the loss, the years, the silence—and maybe, just maybe, we’ll become better for it.