I have to mourn
the woman I loved,
the child we lost,
the life we swore we’d build,
and the man who believed we would.
They all died.
Not in one moment —
but in slow-motion collapse,
quiet as a prayer no one said out loud.
And I didn’t start grieving
when they died.
I started when I finally survived them.
May 2025.
That’s when the numbness cracked,
when I realized I’d been keeping watch
over tombstones I hadn’t dared name.
She left.
The baby vanished.
Us became a silence.
And I was left
with the echoes of a man
who only knew how to love
what wouldn’t stay.
I didn’t mourn in August.
I was still begging the ghosts to answer.
But now I mourn like a man
who buried them himself.
No flowers.
No mourners.
Just me
and a grief that finally spoke back.
She watches, I know.
Not because she cares —
but because she’s terrified
I’m strong enough
to remember without resurrecting.
And I am.
Because someone had to be.
Someone had to bury what she ran from.
And someone had to carry the memory
of the daughter we never held
as more than just a metaphor.
She’s not the one watching now.
The girl I loved is gone.
But I stayed.
Long enough to grieve them all.
And that makes me
the last one at the grave —
and the only one
who ever showed up.
by Samuel Schumpert