His Death Didn’t Free Me—It Broke Something Else Open

There are moments in life that feel too heavy to name, too complex to fit into any stage of grief. Recently, I learned that the man who took my mother has passed away. It was a piece of news I didn’t expect to shake me the way it did. For almost 25 years, I have been waiting with questions that only he could answer, questions that might have offered some sense of understanding or clarity after years of carrying the weight of what he took from us.

Now, with his death, those answers might be gone. The door to that chapter might be closed, not with resolution, but with a kind of silence that is cruel and unfair. I thought maybe this news would be freeing. But instead, it broke something else open inside me, something I didn’t see coming. Because his death didn’t give me freedom. It didn’t give me closure. It gave me another loss. Loss of knowing. Loss of truth. Loss of answers.

It’s strange, grieving the death of someone who caused so much destruction. It’s not that I wanted him in my life or that I am grieving him, but I wanted the chance to understand what he took from us. And now that chance might be gone. It feels like losing something all over again, like the universe ripped away the last thread I was holding on to.

This new layer of grief has reshaped my journey in ways I didn’t expect. Losing my mother was the kind of heartbreak that changes a person forever. But losing the chance to understand the “why” behind it all reopens the wound in a different way. It reminds me that grief is not linear, not logical, and not something that expires with time.

His death is not the end of my grief journey. It’s a fork in the path. His death didn’t free me. It didn’t end anything. It just changed the shape of the pain.

And while I can’t control the answers I may never receive, I can control how I continue moving forward—carrying my mother’s story, honoring her life, and allowing myself to feel whatever comes, without judgment or expectation.

And, I pray that someone, somewhere knows something and finally comes forward.