There are some love stories that are difficult to explain from the outside.

Not because the love wasn't real, but because real life became tangled around it.

When someone we love is struggling with addiction, people can sometimes begin to see the relationship through the lens of that struggle. The addiction then becomes the story. The pain becomes the focal point. The things that went wrong become the narrative.

But before there was addiction, there was love.

And before there was loss, there was someone who was deeply cherished. 

In this blog, I want to focus on a story of complicated love and complicated grief: the story of two people, Ruth and Brent - whose relationship was shaped by both deep affection and difficult circumstances. Sometimes, when grief is viewed only through the lens of addiction, the love that came first can be forgotten.

This is a story about remembering that love.

Brent, Ruth and the love between them

I wanted to begin with Brent - not with how th...

Before there is loss, there is a person who changes your world: a shared life, private jokes, routines that become second nature, and the quiet certainty of having found your person. And, when that person dies, grief is not simply the absence they leave behind. It is the reshaping of everyday life around that absence.

In this series, we are sharing the powerful stories of widowed members of our community, listening not only to how they have lived with loss, but to the relationships that came before it. Because every grief story is also a love story.

In this first piece, Sarah reflects on her life with her beloved Reena, the memories that still bring her close, and what it has meant to navigate widowhood as a woman grieving her same-sex partner. Her story is one of profound loss, enduring love and the importance of being truly seen in grief.

Where it all started

Before understanding the depth of a loss, I think it’s so important to understand the love that came before it. Grief is n...