I don\u2019t even know how to start this without crying. I haven\u2019t spoken to anyone about this\u2014not really. My friends don\u2019t know what to say anymore. And I\u2019m scared that if I say it out loud, it\u2019ll all feel even more real. But here it goes.<\/p>\n
Three months ago, I lost the love of my life. Jake. He was 28. He was funny, patient, so incredibly kind. He proposed on a cold night in February with shaking hands and tears in his eyes, and I said yes before he could even finish the question. We were going to get married in the spring. I had already picked the flowers.<\/p>\n
And then came the phone call. An accident. An irresponsible driver. He lost his life instantly. I still wake up at 3 a.m. thinking he\u2019s in the kitchen making coffee. I still text him sometimes, forgetting he\u2019ll never read it.<\/p>\n
But what broke me even more was what happened after the funeral. I was standing near the church steps, just trying to breathe, when Jake\u2019s brother Jim walked over. I barely looked at him\u2014I couldn\u2019t focus on anything\u2014but he put his hand on my arm and said, I blinked.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe engagement ring. Grandma\u2019s ring. It\u2019s a family heirloom. Stacy really loves it, and I think I\u2019m gonna propose soon.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n He said it like it was no big deal. Like Jake hadn\u2019t just been buried an hour earlier. Like that ring wasn\u2019t still on my finger, burning against my skin.<\/p>\n I stared at him, my heart pounding. He rolled his eyes and laughed in the most cynical way possible.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, but\u2026 you can\u2019t marry him anymore, can you?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Those words. You can\u2019t marry him anymore.<\/em> They shattered something inside me.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t scream. I didn\u2019t cry. I just stood there, frozen, staring at a person I thought was family. My fianc\u00e9\u2019s brother. A man who had just watched me bury my future, now asking for the only thing I had left of it.<\/p>\n I whispered, \u201cHow dare you,\u201d<\/strong> and walked away before I collapsed in front of him.<\/p>\n Since that day, I\u2019ve been getting texts and emails from his mom, his sister, even his aunt. All polite on the surface\u2014\u201cwe understand you\u2019re grieving, but the ring belongs to the family\u201d\u2014but underneath it all, they\u2019re just trying to take it from me.<\/p>\n No one has asked how I\u2019m doing. No one\u2019s come to sit with me, to talk about Jake, to remember him as a person. They just want the ring. The thing.<\/p>\n But what about me? What about the nights I spend crying into his hoodie? What about the wedding dress I never got to wear? What about the life we were building\u2014brick by brick\u2014that got smashed to pieces?<\/p>\n I sleep with that ring on. I talk to it like it\u2019s him. It\u2019s the only thing that still feels like us.<\/p>\n Am I being unreasonable? Am I selfish? Is grief supposed to come with conditions? Can love be undone just because one person is gone?<\/p>\n Sometimes I wonder what Jake would say if he saw what they\u2019re doing. Would he be heartbroken too? Or would he tell me to keep it close, to never let go? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n I just know it still smells like him. And I\u2019m not ready to say goodbye. Not yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don\u2019t even know how to start this without crying. I haven\u2019t spoken to anyone about this\u2014not really. My friends don\u2019t know what to say anymore. And I\u2019m scared that if I say it out loud, it\u2019ll all feel even more real. But here it goes. Three months ago, I lost the love of my …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8675,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8673\/revisions\/8675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cSo, uh\u2026 when do you think you\u2019ll give the ring back?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
\u201cThat ring was Jake\u2019s. He gave it to me because he loved me. Your grandmother blessed it for us. It\u2019s not just some thing to pass down like a casserole dish.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n