You never know when it will hit.
The tears, I mean. The ones that steal your breath, make your chest tight, your throat close. The ones that don’t just come from your eyes—they come from somewhere deeper. Somewhere hollow and aching and still bleeding.

I was just thinking about the flowers. My husband used to bring me flowers. Not just once in a while—but often. Almost every week. It became part of our life, this quiet rhythm of love. A bundle of blooms tucked under his arm, a soft smile, a moment of light in the middle of the chaos. Grocery store bouquets. Sometimes bright and wild, sometimes simple and sweet. Always chosen for me.

The last flowers he gave me were on February 15. The day after Valentine’s. The day before he tried to leave me. I can’t stop thinking about that.

I took a drink of coffee this morning—not a soft, careful sip, but a deep gulp. I wasn’t even thinking. Then I pulled up the picture of the flowers. Bright and full of life. And in that instant, the weight in my chest pushed up into my throat, and I couldn’t swallow. The coffee sat bitter on my tongue, mingling with the bitterness of everything I still don’t understand. How could he buy me flowers one day and try to die the next?

What kind of love is that? What kind of pain lives behind a smile and a bouquet? The flowers were still fresh in that photo. Still upright in the vase, still bright and hopeful. They didn’t know they were the last. They didn’t know they were a goodbye.

But I do.
I know it now.
And I hate that I didn’t know it then.

There is a cruelty to that kind of whiplash—the beauty of the gesture and the horror of what followed. I want to go back and shake myself, tell her to look closer, to ask more questions, to hold on tighter. But I didn’t know. I couldn’t know.

Grief is strange when the person is still alive.

You don’t know where to put it. You don’t know how to carry it. I’m mourning the life we had before the attempt. I’m mourning who he was before he tried. And some days, I’m mourning who I was too. The woman who believed flowers meant forever.

Now I look at that photo and all I can think is:
Did he already know?
Was that his parting gift?
Or was he still trying to find a reason to stay?

I will never have the answers. But I will always have the questions.