You can be doing well and still miss them.

You can be proud of yourself: of how far you’ve come, of what you’ve built, and still feel that quiet ache show up in the middle of it.

The one that says, they should be here for this.

It doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful. It doesn’t mean you’re stuck.

It just means you loved them. It means you still do.

Grief doesn’t wait for life to settle down.

It shows up in the middle of good days.

In the middle of something you once hoped for.

In the middle of a version of your life that, at one point, felt so far away.

And there you are - holding both.

Joy and longing.

Hope and ache.

Gratitude and grief.

At the same damn time.

For a long time, I thought there was something I needed to resolve in that.

Some way to make it easier to explain.

But the truth is, it was never meant to be.

Grief doesn’t cancel out joy & hope.

And hope doesn’t erase grief.

They learn how to exist alongside each other.

Quietly, sometimes. Loudly, other times.

Recently, I’ve been reminding myself and the people I work with that we don’t need permission to do what calls us.

After publishing Grief, Hope, Baseball, I felt both the love and the weight of sharing something so personal. Most of it was received with so much care and support. And still, there were moments where it felt like the point was missed.

That’s part of what brought me to Substacks.

I wanted a space to keep writing essays.

To stay connected to this kind of reflection and authenticity.

To welcome more meaningful conversations about grief, hope, and everything in between.

So if you’ve found yourself in a moment where things are going well, and something in you still feels heavy:

You’re not doing anything wrong.

You’re just carrying love in a world where someone important is missing.