The Anniversary I Wish I Didn’t Remember
A Date I Carry, Not One I Mark
I don’t think I will ever forget January 22, 2020. The day my husband died. I didn’t mark it on a calendar. I didn’t need to. My body remembers it. My nervous system remembers it. My life split itself into a before and an after, and no amount of time has stitched that seam back together the way it once was:
That day changed everything.
It changed my dreams.
It changed my sense of safety.
It changed my identity.
It even shifted family relationships in ways I never could have predicted.
Once, someone asked me why I remember the day he died so clearly. Why that date still lives so close to the surface. I didn’t have an answer ready then. I still sometimes wonder why I remember it the way I do. But here’s what I know now. We all remember dates that shape us. Some are joyful. Some are celebratory. Some are tied to laughter and photos and stories we tell over and over again. And then there are the dates that carry weight. The ones that mark loss. The ones that quietly rearranged our lives without asking permission. Those dates don’t fade easily. They’re not meant to.
January 22 weighs heavy on me, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. It makes it an honest thing. It marks the moment my life changed and honoring that doesn’t mean I’m stuck there. It means I remember where I started. It’s been six years now. Six years of learning how to stand on my own when I never planned to. Six years of discovering strength I didn’t ask for but had to grow into. Six years of rebuilding trust in myself when the ground underneath me disappeared.
When I look back at that day now, I don’t only see the loss. I see the beginning of a version of me who learned how to survive, then slowly learned how to live again. I see the woman who figured out how to rely on herself, even when she was exhausted, scared, and grieving. Anniversaries like this don’t come to punish us. They come to remind us of where we’ve been and how far we’ve walked since. They don’t erase the ache, but they offer perspective. Growth doesn’t cancel grief. Both can exist in the same breath.
If you’re carrying an anniversary that feels heavy today, I understand. Remembering doesn’t mean you’re stuck. It means the love mattered. It means the loss was real. And it means you’re still here, standing in the life that followed, even if it looks nothing like what you once imagined. Some dates stay with us forever. Not because they broke us. But because they changed us. And sometimes, that remembering is part of how we keep going.
