Full Hearts, Broken Hearts

There are some weeks on the calendar that don't need a reminder. Your body knows they're coming before your mind wants to admit it. This is one of those weeks for our family.

Three years ago, we lost David — my friend, my son-in-law — far too soon and in a way that still feels impossible to fully process. Time has passed, as it always does. Life has continued, as it must. But grief doesn't follow the rules we expect. It doesn't fade neatly. It changes shape. It shows up in new ways. And often, it shows up in the middle of beautiful moments.

Because David left behind Liam. Every milestone Liam reaches… every celebration… every proud moment… carries both joy and an ache. We cheer the loudest, and yet there's a quiet awareness that someone is missing from the sideline. It's the strange reality of grief — full hearts and broken hearts occupying the same body at the same time.

This week Audrey and Liam are here with us. We'll laugh. We'll make memories. We'll do ordinary things that matter more than they used to. But the reason for the gathering will sit gently in the background, like an uninvited guest we've learned to live alongside.

Liam is at an age where grief is complicated by questions… and by anger. He's wrestling with understanding his dad — not just as the hero every child wants, but as a human being. Someone flawed. Someone who made choices Liam may not understand or agree with. And that's hard.

Joe is taking him fishing this week. Not because fishing fixes anything, but because sometimes boys talk better side-by-side than face-to-face. Sometimes healing starts with a quiet line in the water and space to ask honest questions.

We want Liam to know something we are all still learning ourselves: You can love someone deeply and still wrestle with parts of their story. You can wish things had been different and still hold onto what was good.

People are imperfect. Love isn't. Grief doesn't mean we stop remembering who someone really was. It means we keep making room for them — honestly, not ideally — in our lives.

So this week, we'll hold space for all of it. The laughter. The sadness. The questions. The stories. The love that didn't end. Because loss doesn't erase relationship. It just changes how we carry it.

If you find yourself walking through something similar — missing someone while still moving forward — you're not doing it wrong. This is what it looks like. Messy. Tender. Confusing. Sacred. Full hearts. Broken hearts. Still beating together.