widow

Grief is not pretty. It is loneliness at a primal level. Like some organ has been removed and you can't really breathe properly. It's waking up each morning where your first thought is this is another day without your person. And in that way, without the you that you were. It's going to bed alone each night without him.

Tammy Perconti lost her husband and gained a daughter in a three-month span. Nothing's ever been the same.

The stages of grief were not meant to tell you what you feel, what you should feel, and when exactly you should feel it. They were not meant to dictate whether you are doing your grief "correctly" or not. They were meant to normalize a deeply not-normal time.