Niki Lopez

And I Am Sad All the Time

Grief doesn't always live on the outside. Sometimes it survives under the skin, just below the surface.

My walk with grief began in 2017 when my husband died. That journey did not have a kind or gentle beginning. It began violently, when I said goodbye to him in the morning and then spent three days begging him to wake up. He never spoke to me again.

I processed that grief, and I will carry it for the rest of my life as the honor that it is—the honor of having loved him and been loved by him.

And then grief revisited with a cruel vengeance in 2025.

That year took three friends, my brother, and our dog, all by the end of March. Then, in September, my cat died, and a week later, my mom. Three months later, my youngest son's cat died, followed a week later by my dad.

To say this current grief is specifically and spectacularly layered feels like a disrespectful understatement.

And then life just seems to go on, as though nothing happened.

The rude indignance of that is palpable.

We return to work. We do the laundry. We wash the dinner dishes. We answer emails. We go through the motions.

Grief is a difficult topic to talk about, ask about, or even think about. And sometimes we don't, because we are buried in it ourselves, struggling to breathe when it feels as though there isn't enough oxygen in the room to survive the magnitude of our loss.

It is a very different thing to lose your parents.

Parents are the primary witnesses to our lives. They know all there is to know about us from the earliest years—the years we may not even remember ourselves. They hold memories and moments that no one else shares.

To no longer be able to pick up the phone and call the people who hold those stories is blatant heartache.

Dad's birthday has come and gone. That day was very difficult, as was Easter before it. There will be many difficult days ahead.

After my husband died, I lived for that split second after waking but before remembering that he was gone.

I am having those mornings again.

I don't love them.

They are heavy with grief and weighted with a literal gravity that makes it difficult to get out of bed many days.

And I am sad all the time.

I battle daily beneath a profound and invisible wall of struggle.

I go to work. I function. I laugh. I cry.

My job is listening to grieving people. It is sacred work, and everybody's story is different and difficult in its own way.

All grief is heavy, and I help others carry theirs.

They are sad every day, too. But, like me, most of them are working, living, and caring as much as they can about the things that used to matter more.

I can't complain that my parents died in any literal sense. They were 89 and 93, respectively. They lived long lives and built a beautiful life and love story.

But, of course, I am complaining.

I complain to myself that I can't call and hear their voices. That they will never sing "Happy Birthday" to me again, nor I to them.

I can't hug them.

I can't make them laugh.

There will be no more reminiscing. No more storytelling. No more ordinary conversations that I never realized I would one day desperately miss.

And I am always sad.

Who will take their place?

No one.

How does a family go on with no one at the helm?

Do we all just flail until we eventually fall into our appropriate roles and places?

I don't think it works that way.

No. Now is the time we find our way.

And if we cannot find our way, then we simply make our way, such as it is and whatever it looks like.

Will we survive?

Definitely.

We are strong.

But we will never, ever look or be the same.

And perhaps that is the profoundly sad yet appropriate thing about grief.

We aren't supposed to be the same.

Loss changes us because love mattered.

The people we have lost cannot be replaced. Their places cannot be filled. Their stories cannot be recreated.

So we learn to carry the empty spaces alongside everything else.

We go to work.

We make dinner.

We answer the phone.

We laugh when something is funny.

We cry when we need to.

We keep living.

Not because we are finished grieving, but because life continues to ask us to participate in it.

And some days, participating is the best we can do.

Some days, getting out of bed is an accomplishment.

Some days, remembering to eat is enough.

Some days, we function while carrying a weight no one else can see.

And some days, we are simply sad.

There is no lesson I need to pull from this.

No silver lining.

No inspirational ending.

No requirement to be grateful for the experience.

My parents lived long lives. My husband was loved. My family is strong. I know all of these things.

And still, I am sad.

I am sad because I miss them.

I am sad because there are people I can no longer call.

I am sad because there are stories that will never be told again in the voices that carried them.

I am sad because there are hugs I will never receive and birthdays that will never sound the same.

I am sad because love does not disappear simply because the person we loved does.

And maybe that is what I need to say most plainly:

I am sad all the time.

And for now, that is the truth.

I don't need to apologize for it.

I don't need to fix it.

I don't need to make it meaningful.

I just need to make my way through it.

One day.

One morning.

One breath.

One ordinary moment at a time.

And perhaps, for now, that is enough.