People ask how I manage now, and the truth is that grief has no clean lines. It is unpredictable, arriving in waves: some small enough to step over, others large enough to knock me down completely. But I keep moving because reminders of her surround me. I hear her laugh in Hugo’s jokes. I see her determination reflected in Eloise’s expressions. I sense her vibrancy in the ordinary rhythms of life—a cup of tea warming my hands, a shaft of sunlight through the window, a silly meme she would have sent to make me smile. I keep going because the children need stability, and she would have hated to see me collapse beneath sorrow. More than anything, I keep going because Deborah taught me how. She taught me that joy can be squeezed from even the darkest situations, that purpose can be carved from suffering, that one person’s voice can ripple outward in ways they never imagined. Her legacy is not just her blog or her activism. It lives in every person who caught their symptoms early because she urged them to pay attention. It lives in every story shared with gratitude. It lives in every act of advocacy she inspired. It lives, most of all, in love—a love that extends far beyond family boundaries, far beyond her own lifetime, continuing to move outward through those she affected. Continue reading…
