Breathe Wellness Co

This past week I traveled to Chicago for a work conference. It was busy, full of new faces, long sessions, and the kind of energy that a big city always carries. From the outside, it was just another trip. But for me, travel always carries something deeper now, it brings both the ache of loss and small glimpses of peace.

I sat there on the plane and cried. Not the loud, uncontrollable kind of crying, but the quiet tears that slip down when memories and reality collide. And an overwhelming feeling that has no where to go but down my cheeks. Every single day there is something that reminds me of the realness of your absence. Yet, somehow, it still doesn’t feel real.

On that plane, I realized I couldn’t text you the little updates I used to share or ask you if you were the one in the jet airplane beside us, flight delays, city lights, or the funny things that always seemed to happen when I traveled. That stung in the deepest way. The small moments, the things people wouldn’t even think twice about, are the ones that hit the hardest.

But in the middle of my uncontrollable tears, I also felt peace. Being in the clouds, high above the ground, I felt just a little bit closer to you. Almost like I could stretch my hand out and reach the thin place between here and eternity.

I found myself imagining heaven with a jet airplane, your name painted right on the side. I could almost see you and your ear to ear grin… free, full of life, taking flight in a way you never could here on earth. That thought gave me a strange comfort.

Grief is like that… woven with both pain and peace, tears and hope. Two opposite feelings can co-exist and I realize that more and more each day. I miss you in all the big and small moments, bubby. But I also know you’re not really gone. You’ve just gone ahead.

So, from the skies above Chicago back to my quiet moments here at home, I carry you with me. Always. I love you to the moon and back, Christopher.