From Sun Up to Sun Down

From Sun Up to Sun Down

The morning light slips through the cracked edge of the bedroom curtain—thin, golden, insistent. It lands across the pillow beside mine, the one that still holds the ghost of his shape. I watch it there, just lying still, not daring to touch it. Sun up. Another day. Another war.

I don’t remember the last time I looked in the mirror and saw myself. I see shadows beneath eyes that used to carry laughter. I see hands that used to reach for his, now always folding into themselves, gripping nothing. Sixteen months since he left. Sixteen months of breathing without music, loving without audience, existing without witness.

They say grief comes in waves, but this feels more like a drought. A slow, relentless pulling away of everything wet and warm inside me until I’m just dust and echo. From sun up to sun down, I move through rituals. Coffee. Shower. Walk. Laundry. Repeat. It’s not living—just endurance dressed in routine.

There was a time—just a few years ago—when I believed love was for other people. That I was built wrong for it. Too sharp. Too quiet. Too much past. Then he came. Not handsome in the way magazines praise, but kind in a way that made the world softer. He’d hum off-key while fixing the sink. Leave little notes in my coat pockets: "Don’t forget your umbrella. I love you." He’d hold my hand when I cried, not trying to fix it, just saying, "I’m here. I’m here."

We met late. I thought I was too old to be discovered, too broken to be chosen. But he saw me. Not fixed me—saw me. And for the first time in my 58 years, I let someone love me. Really love me. And I—finally—let myself love back.

And then, three years in, his heart betrayed him. Just like that. One minute laughing at a dumb cat video, the next, gone. No time for last words. No time to say I’m sorry I didn’t lean into you sooner. I’m sorry I held back when I was afraid to need you too much.

I wait for guilt to fade. It hasn’t. Sometimes I lie awake thinking, What if I had noticed the fatigue sooner? What if I had made him go to the doctor that week? What if I had held him tighter that last morning?

But there is no “what if” in death. Only what is.

From sun up to sun down, I pray. Not the polished prayers from church. The raw, gasping kind. The kind that come out like sobs flung at the sky. "God, I can’t do this. Help me do this. I don’t want to be strong. I just want to feel close to him again. Let me hear his voice. Let me feel his hand."

And sometimes—on the best days—I do. In the hush between breaths. In the sudden warmth of sunlight on my skin. In the bluebirds that visit the feeder he hung. I say, "That’s you, isn’t it? That’s you saying I’m still here with you."

People offer help. Meals, hugs, casseroles wrapped in foil like hope. They say, "You’re so strong." But I’m not. I’m hanging by a thread. Every morning, I wake up and make a choice: I will breathe today. I will walk outside. I will speak to someone. I will not call the crisis line—today.

Because from sun up to sun down is all I can promise. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Just today.

I used to think love was something you gave. Now I know—it’s something you receive. And he gave me love like a gift I never knew how to unwrap until it was too late. And now, the greatest act of love I can offer is to stay. To keep walking. To whisper "thank you" through tears when the sunrise blazes anyway.

I miss him in every bone. I miss him in the quiet. I miss him in the way my coffee tastes bitter now, like nothing has flavor without his laughter filling the room.

But I am still here.

And if being here is the only thing I have to give—if showing up each morning, even when my soul feels flayed open, is my offering—then I will give that.

From sun up to sun down.

That’s all I’ve got.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s enough.

Not for the world.

But for him.

And for God.

And for me.