A reflection on the second anniversary of losing Dylan
Two years today.
Those words sit heavy on my chest, but the truth is… I don’t feel different today than I did yesterday. Or last week. Or most days in between.
People talk about the anniversary like it’s a storm you can circle on a calendar—something you should prepare for, dread, honor, or crumble under. But here’s the honest truth, at least for me:
I feel like these the other 364 days of the year too.
Nothing magically shifts because today is the day. The grief didn’t wait for November 27th to show up. It’s been here, walking beside me every morning, every night, every quiet moment in between. The ache doesn’t need a date to remind me of what I lost.
So, is today just another day?
Yes… and no.
Yes, because the pain, the longing, the missing—it’s always there.
No, because the world expects me to feel something specific today.
Yes, because I hold Dylan every single day in the same place in my heart.
No, because today marks the moment life split into “before” and “after.”
It’s complicated. Grief is always complicated.
Should we be consumed by the anniversary?
This is something I’ve wrestled with.
There’s this pressure—from society, from family, from ourselves—to make the anniversary into a monumental day. We think we’re supposed to fall apart… or do something big… or sit still in the weight of it. And sometimes we do.
But two years in, I realize something that took me a long time to accept:
You don’t owe the day anything.
You don’t have to perform your grief.
You don’t have to relive the trauma.
You don’t have to break open on command.
Your heart already does that in a thousand small moments you never post about, never talk about, never circle on a calendar.
Maybe the anniversary is a day to honor your child.
Maybe it’s a day to rest.
Maybe it’s a day to do nothing at all because you’re exhausted.
Maybe it’s a day where you feel numb.
Maybe it’s a day where you feel love more than pain.
There is no right way.
For me, two years later…
I don’t wake up today feeling any different. I didn’t sleep differently. I didn’t brace myself. I didn’t fall apart.
What I do feel is what I always feel:
A missing that never fades.
A love that never weakens.
A connection that somehow keeps growing, even in the absence.
A quiet strength that Dylan continues to teach me, even now.
And maybe that’s what the anniversary really is—not a single day to collapse under, but a reminder of how deeply you have survived the other 364 days.
To any parent living this same reality
Please know this:
If today hits hard for you, that’s okay.
If today feels like every other day, that’s okay too.
You are not failing your child.
You are not grieving “wrong.”
You are not supposed to feel any certain way.
Grief doesn’t follow the calendar. Neither does love.
A message to Dylan
Two years, my boy. And I miss you just as much today as I do every single day. I hope you’re somewhere close, sending feathers, butterflies, the number 27… reminding me that love doesn’t end. I carry you—today, tomorrow, and all the quiet days in between.
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