She died three months ago. And I’m still in shock. I still can’t believe she’s really gone.
We were both 25. Married. And we had two kids. A 7-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. And somehow, my daughter seems to be dealing with her death better than I am.
I met her when we were 11. I fell in love with her in middle school, and she fell in love with me. By the time we were 15, she was pregnant. We were terrified. Excited. Overwhelmed. But mostly… hopeful.
It was a girl. We named her Alice—after a character in a movie we both loved. But then… we lost her.
A late-term miscarriage at six months. She was devastated. Suicidal. Broken. She had to spend months in a mental hospital. Her parents were abusive. They treated her like she was nothing. And for a while, she felt like she was nothing.
When she was discharged, she refused to go back home. She moved in with my dad and me. She seemed happier at first. We partied. We laughed. But there was still a shadow over her.
Alice.
She would spend hours talking to her ashes, crying, whispering, “I miss you. I wish you were here.” And no matter how much I tried to comfort her, I could never reach her through that grief.
A year later, at 17, she got pregnant again. Another girl. She believed this baby was a reincarnation of Alice. She even wanted to name her after the same movie character. But as the pregnancy progressed, reality set in. This baby… wasn’t Alice.
After she gave birth, she told me something that cut me deeper than anything else ever had: she didn’t love our daughter the way she loved Alice.
I begged her to get therapy. She refused.
We moved out of my dad’s house and into our own apartment. She felt lonely. Isolated. Trapped with our daughter while I worked full-time. She kept saying she wished Alice was here instead. She tried working to escape the house. She hated it and quit a month later.
At 19, I proposed. She was ecstatic. She wanted to spend her life with me—but even then, she kept saying it would be better if it were just us. No kids. No distractions.
Two years later, she got pregnant again. A boy this time. She was convinced this baby could be Alice reincarnated. When we found out it was a boy, she tried to kill herself. I had to fight to keep her alive. Two weeks in the hospital. And still… the only thing that kept her going was the thought that maybe God sent Alice as a boy.
We got married. Bought a house. Had our son. And yet… nothing changed. She didn’t love him. She never did. She didn’t love our daughter. She didn’t love us the way she loved Alice.
For ten years, she carried that love like a knife through her heart. She cried constantly about Alice. She spoke about her every day. She mourned her every hour. And I… I watched, powerless, wondering why I couldn’t compete with a memory, with a ghost.
She killed herself on the 10-year anniversary of Alice’s death. In her note, she wrote:
“There is no one on this earth I love more than Alice. I need to be with her, even if that means leaving all of you behind.”
And now… I’m left here.
I’m angry. Furious. Why did she care more about a miscarriage from ten years ago than the two living children who need her? Why did she love a ghost more than her own family?
My daughter told me she’s not that sad about her mom’s death. And I can’t stop crying because she’s right. Her mom never loved her.
And my son… he’ll never know a mother’s love.
But even as I rage. Even as I grieve. Even as I hate her for leaving us behind… I still loved her. More than anyone. Since the moment I met her in middle school, I loved her with everything I had.
It’s just… a tragic, impossible love. One that will never be healed. One that left holes in all our hearts.
And the worst part? Knowing that my children will grow up without their mother, while I will always remember the girl I loved more than life itself… who loved someone else instead.
