Month: October 2025

When the “Blah” Days Hit

On By tomstroopsIn Alpha Lima Sierra1 Comment
A glass cup filled with dark coffee sitting on a wooden table with soft, natural lighting.

Yesterday, over breakfast, Grant said something that stuck with me.
We were sitting outside, enjoying the cool morning and enjoying our coffee and the breakfast he made on the Blackstone, when he looked at me and said, “Does this make you sad? That you can’t have breakfasts like this with Tom anymore?”

I told him it does, but I also feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. Can I tell you I felt that question, man, I just felt it. That quiet ache rolled in under the smell of the sausage, pancakes, and coffee.

He wasn’t wrong with his question. He knew we both felt it.

Moments like that tug at an old thread. The kind that unravels memories you weren’t trying to touch that day. It’s not the deep, chest-crushing grief that knocks you flat. It’s the smaller kind that slips in quietly, turns everything gray, and leaves you feeling…blah. And today, I have had the BLAHs.

People talk about grief like it’s a process with stages and progress. But some days it’s just a loop of missing, remembering, and adjusting to the fact that joy now shares space with absence. And yet, even through that grayness, there was something good about the moment.

Because we could talk about it. Because someone noticed. That part matters more than people realize. So often we feel the sadness but swallow it down because saying it out loud might make it too real. Or we worry that if we admit it, someone will rush in with a fix instead of just sitting in it with us. So we stay quiet. We smile through the ache.

But when someone actually sees it, when they notice without you having to name it, it’s both tender and terrifying. It means you’re seen. And sometimes being seen is the hardest, most healing thing of all. Because we didn’t have to hide the truth that I still miss Tom and he misses his wife, even while we are building something new together.

The comments when I posted about it were kind and incredibly supportive. But the truth is, this isn’t about sadness or moving on. It’s about living honestly in the in-between. It’s about acknowledging that the ache doesn’t mean I’m broken. It just means I loved deeply enough to still feel it.

So yeah, today feels blah.

But maybe “blah” is just the body’s way of saying, I remember.

There Is Strength in Grief

On By tomstroopsIn Alpha Lima SierraLeave a comment

A serene landscape showing a clear blue sky with bright sunlight and fluffy white clouds above lush green foliage and a wet road.

It sounds backward, doesn’t it? Strength in grief. We don’t feel strong when we’re grieving. We feel broken, small, and wildly out of control. But the truth is, it takes real strength to survive grief, to face the emptiness, push through the fog, and keep getting up anyway.

Strength isn’t smiling through the pain. It’s dragging yourself through the day when even breathing feels like work. It’s making peace with the ache, one shaky breath at a time, and finding purpose again when your reason for living is gone.

Yesterday was Tom’s birthday. It was a hard day. I went to a veteran event that morning and powered through, all the while feeling the weight of the date. By lunch, I was home. I stayed in bed the rest of the day. That’s how I recharge. I let the world fade while I sit in the pain and I try to understand it until I can find my footing again.

This morning was different. I woke up ready to move, not forward exactly, but through. I started cleaning, and that meant facing some of Tom’s things. I pulled out his work awards and plaques. They once lined his office walls like medals of honor, but after his medical retirement, they ended up in the back of the closet and out of sight, but never out of heart. I’d tried to go through them before, but grief stopped me cold. Yesterday, I couldn’t even touch them. Today, I could.

I looked at each one, acknowledged his incredible accomplishments, and recognized something I hadn’t before: they were his. Not ours. His. And that’s okay. With Trey’s support, I let them go.

That’s when it hit me and I heard the words in my head, there is strength in grief. Because every time I sit in it, feel it, and move through it, I build a stronger version of myself.

To my fellow widows and widowers: you’re not broken. You’re not powerless. You are proof that love can hurt like hell and still make you stronger. Strength isn’t shiny, it’s tear-streaked, messy, and real and sometimes, it looks like standing in your closet, holding what’s left of a life you loved, and choosing to keep living anyway.