Brian Wade Romanchuk

They say time heals. But time is a cruel master – it just hands grief the keys, lets it in the door, and watches it unpack.Grief and I know each other too well now.

At first, it came like a storm. Loud. Sudden. Bold. Everything soaked in his name. He was everywhere. He still is. I hear his truck or the low deep sound of his voice while I stand at the sink. I’ve run to look more times than I can count. He’s everywhere but really he’s not. Grief remains with me.

It lingered. Sometimes it was quiet. I could feel it sitting in the corners. Watching me try to sleep. Invading my insomniac dreams with his face and what it felt like to hold his hand. Grief interlocks it’s fingers with mine …still.

Time didn’t mend me. Time heals nothing. It gave grief a bed. A chair at the table. A voice in the back of my mind.A familiar voice in the silence. His voice.

And I thought—maybe— that was the worst of it. I was wrong. I learned too quickly how merciless and cruel it could be…

But grief was patient. It didn’t just stay. It dug deep.It started to build in the emptiness this loss left in me.

Time became a blueprint, and sorrow— the architect.

It laid the foundation for everything I was becoming. Rewired my mornings. Coffee- 2 sugars 2 milk. The way he liked it. It buried itself in my habits. His memory is the thunder in my steps. I grieve without apologies. I don’t hide the tears. I don’t even bother wiping them away. The love has to go somewhere. I can’t give it to him so it comes overflowing from my eyes.

Even joy, when it dares to appear, feels like a room he once stood in. A room that he should still stand in.

Now, every new breath echoes like the memory of his laughter. Every new wall is painted in pain of his absence. Every new day— a hallway haunted by what should have been.

I don’t just carry the loss. I live inside it. I have become one with it. It is deep in my bones and deeper in my soul. I don’t just carry it. I cling to it. Every memory sacred. I won’t forget. Not ever.

Grief didn’t pass. It chose to stay. It made itself law. It made itself right at home.

And they still call this healing…

But it’s what was left of the only place I ever felt safe.I know— this inheritance. This is the house he haunts. The one grief is still building within me. I will walk its halls, and run my fingers across the scars on its walls. I whisper quietly “I miss you, B.” several times a day. Whoever said time heals is a liar. Grief is beside me. Right where he should be. There will never be another, B.Until we meet again grief will be my companion.

Always