Letters From The Quiet Corner - Nicki, Where are you?

Nicki,
Where are you?

Most days I can still convince myself that you’re just away — that you’re busy, or unreachable, or not ready to come home yet. I’m not ready to face the truth that you’re not here. The weight of believing that you’re gone is too heavy. I can’t carry it. Not yet.

Where are my text messages?
Where are my FaceTimes?
Where has the chaos gone, the laughter, the noise you brought with you wherever you went?

I can’t let myself feel that fully. I’m not ready, and I don’t know if I ever will be.

I’m sitting here trying not to feel while I message your little boy, asking him about his day. I cannot comprehend that this little boy does not have a dad. I cannot comprehend that your little girl will never know you. Every time I see a photo of you — in my camera roll, on social media — it feels like a physical pain in my chest. My heart jumps, like it knows a piece of it is missing.

When you left, I wrote that I didn’t know a heart could break this much and still beat. Those words mean something different now. My heart is still broken — I know that — but I can’t acknowledge it fully because I’m afraid that if I do, the pain will be so unbearable that the rest of me will break too.

I speak to your wife, and she feels the same. There’s comfort in knowing I’m not alone — that we are together in this refusal to accept the reality you’ve left us in.

I know you were suffering. Everyone knew. But if you could have held on just a little longer, you would have seen how deeply you are loved. You would have looked into your daughter’s eyes and known you were needed. They need you. I need you.

Growing up, I only ever really had you. You got me through things you probably never realised you were helping me survive. You did so much for me without even knowing it.

I can’t think of you in the ground — it frightens me. The thought that I may never see you again tightens my chest until I can barely breathe. I want to see your cheeky smile, hear that half-Welsh, half-Scottish accent again. What have you done?

I keep telling myself this isn’t permanent. It can’t be. It has to be some kind of mistake. Because how do we go on without you? Time is moving forward, but we are stuck in 2022 — the day my world became smaller, the day mortality became real, the day I will never forget.

I’m holding onto my faith as best I can. I’m clinging to anything and everything that still feels like you. I’m writing this to tell you that I’m trying to keep my promise — to help others, to talk about the things you were told to keep quiet, to remind the world that our men feel deeply, painfully, beautifully — and that it’s normal.

I’m not ready to accept that you’re gone forever. I’m pushing that truth deep, deep down until I feel confident that I’ve done what I promised you I would do.

Some days I want to scream until my throat is raw, until there’s no air left in my lungs. Other days it feels like every day I live is moving me toward something — I don’t know what. Seeing you again. Sensing you again. Being where you are. I don’t know. I just know that’s how it feels.

“I miss you” isn’t enough. It’s nowhere near enough.
I miss the memories we’ll never get to make.
I miss the milestones we were meant to share.
I miss arguing over nothing, the way siblings do.

I once said I would carry this grief with pride because it is the cost of love. And I will — just not fully. Not yet.

I love you. And so many people love you.
It will never be enough — but I don’t think anything ever could be.