Nothing could have prepared me for suicide loss. It’s been two years without Kody. Two years too long. That is two years since I’ve heard his laugh. Two years without his smile.

It still surprises me that the world continues on without him. Such a loss surely should have meant that the world would pause. Yet the days rush by and they continue to rush by. How can it be that we’re already two years out from his death? There are moments where it feels like it was just yesterday and I can barely breathe for missing him. Other times, it feels like two years or even more, but my heart still aches.

Suicide loss is so unlike all the other losses from my life. Even though I’d heard him talk about suicide attempts and heard him talk through moments of crushing depression, somehow the fact that he’d actually done it, still stunned me. Some part of me had been so sure that he’d make it, even while all the odds were stacked against it.

I don’t think I’ll ever be over it. I’m not sure how anyone could ever be expected to get over something like this. The pain doesn’t end because no matter what the next day brings it won’t bring him back. I can fold a thousand cranes, visit his memorial tree, go up to the spot where he left us forever, and it won’t bring him back.

There is no end to the missing because there is a hole that cannot be filled, a place where he was always meant to be. I doubt whether the number of years between him and I will ever matter. The loss will remain forever a part of who I am.

Everyone tells me how strong I am. But the reality is that’s how you survive suicide loss. You just do. Not because you are strong, but because you have no other choice.