Today would have been Kait’s 31st birthday.
Losing her brought my world to a complete halt – everything stopped, and I couldn’t imagine ever rising up again. I stopped caring about the future, about life, and even about me.
Grief didn’t just break me open – it stripped everything away. I went down to nothingness. To hopelessness. To a place where every breath felt heavy and every step felt impossible. I moved through every shade of grieving: shock, despair, anger, numbness, worthlessness, the kind of sorrow that swallows you whole.
There was no direct path back. No map. No instructions.
No solid ground to stand on.
People tried to help, and they meant well. They offered tips, advice, encouraging words… but none of it could reach the part of me that had been shattered. It’s not that I didn’t want to follow their suggestions – it’s that I couldn’t.
They were speaking from a place of emotional safety, and I was hearing them from a dark, tangled, disoriented place.I call it parallel talking:
two worlds brushing up against each other, but unable to communicate.
Grief forces you to face yourself in the most brutal way.
Who are you when everything that defined you has been torn away?
Mom. Singer. Spouse. Friend. Creator.
All those “roles” fall off like old clothing, and suddenly you are confronted only with you.
Singular.
Bare.
Lost.
And yet…
somewhere in that blackness, on legs that barely held me, I began the slow process of moving.
Finding a path.
Feeling the ground again.
Noticing the faintest glow of a dim light ahead.
One day, after years of tears and daily conversations with Kait, I told her:
“I can never move on – but I can move forward.” And something in me softened.
A small, unexpected peace wrapped around me like a blanket.
Then, in ways I still don’t fully understand, the Universe began placing small blessings in my path… gentle nudges whispering:
Keep going.
Keep creating.
Keep walking.
Not without her – but with her, differently.
As Andrea Maas wrote in her book “Why Did The Bad Guy Shoot My Dad”:
“It never gets better. It gets different.”
I understand that now in my bones.
And here is what is “different” for me now:
Songs have started pouring out of me again – over a dozen in ten days.
It feels as if they were always there, waiting for me to open the channel.
I am writing with more depth, more clarity, more truth about the things that actually matter.
I am healing. I am learning who I am now. And Kait is part of every note.
I continue to walk forward with her presence beside me, inside me, and all around me – stronger, quieter, deeper.
If you’ve lost someone you love beyond words, I hope you can feel this too:
Forever my daughter. Forever my friend. 💜
#KaitsComfortKits