Lessons Hidden in Separation

Sometimes I wonder if life had been teaching me all along, in ways I didn’t recognise at the time. Was our separation five years ago meant to prepare me for this moment? A quiet sign, urging me to learn how to stand on my own, to live independently in case something ever happened to him?

Back then, I thought the pain of parting ways was unbearable. The silence in the house, the absence of his presence, the way Kenzo’s world split into two homes - it all felt so heavy. And yet, looking back now, I see how I adapted, little by little. I learned to navigate on my own, to carry the weight of responsibility, to build a life for us in a different shape.

But even with that hard-earned independence, this grief still cuts so deeply. If I’m mourning him this much now, even though we were no longer together, then how much heavier would it have been if we had still been side by side? Would the loss have broken me completely, or would the love we once shared have somehow carried me through?

I’ll never know the answer. What I do know is that separation didn’t erase love, nor did it erase the history we built. The years apart may have been a lesson in resilience, but they could never shield me from the ache of losing him forever.

So here I am - still standing, but carrying both the independence I was forced to learn and the grief I never wanted to face. Maybe that’s what life was trying to teach me: that I can hold both at once. That I can survive the absence and still honor the love.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.