Straight from the Deputy Heart Editor
Lois Nwabali
Shattered Forever: A Widow’s Cry the World Will Never Understand
The Day My World Collapsed
No words can capture what it feels like to watch your life collapse in a single moment. When I heard those words—“Charlie’s been shot”—I felt my lungs collapse, my heart stop, and my soul tear in two. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. My husband, my best friend, the father of my children—gone in a flash, taken by violence I will never understand.
I replay the last morning over and over again. He kissed me quickly, hugged the kids, and said, “I’ll be back soon.” If I had known that “soon” meant never, I would have held him tighter, begged him to stay, locked the door if I had to. But I didn’t. And now all I have left is silence and an empty bed that feels colder with each passing night.
Alone in the Darkness
Grief is not just sadness—it is suffocation. Every night, I lie awake staring into the ceiling, praying that maybe this is just a nightmare and I will wake up to hear his footsteps, his laugh, his voice saying, “Babe, I’m home.”
But the silence answers me. The shadows in our bedroom mock me. His side of the bed is untouched, his pillow still smells faintly of him, but he is gone. The loneliness wraps itself around me like a chain, reminding me that I am now both mother and father, both comforter and provider, when all I ever wanted was to be his partner for life.
The Children’s Questions
What breaks me the most are their little voices. “Mommy, where’s Daddy? Why isn’t he here?”
How do I explain to them that their father was stolen by cruelty, that evil in human form took him away from us? How do I tell them that the world is not safe, that sometimes love and goodness are not enough to keep someone alive?
I find myself lying, because the truth is unbearable. I whisper, “Daddy’s watching over us. He loves you.” But inside, I am screaming. I want to scream at God, at the assassins, at fate itself. I want to scream until my voice breaks.
The Burden of Guilt
More than grief, it is guilt that poisons me. I told him to go. I didn’t stop him. I should have known. I should have felt something. Why didn’t I hold him back?
People tell me it isn’t my fault. But what do they know? They don’t live in my body, in my mind, where the scene replays endlessly: him walking out the door, me smiling as if life was normal, and then—the call. The call that ended everything.
I will never forgive myself. Maybe the world can excuse me, but I never will. Because in my heart, I failed him. I failed to protect the man who protected me.
Living with His Ghost
Charlie is everywhere. In the children’s laughter. In the chair he always sat in. In the half-read books on his desk. I cannot erase him, and I do not want to. But living with his ghost is agony.
Sometimes, I still reach for my phone to text him. Sometimes, I hear a joke and think, Charlie would laugh at this. Then I remember. He will never laugh again. He will never hold me again. He will never walk our daughter down the aisle or teach our son to shave.
And when I realize this, my body shakes with a grief so deep it feels like drowning.
Nights That Never End
Nights are the worst. I wake up sweating, crying, reaching for him. The bed feels like a graveyard. The silence is heavier than any scream.
I stare into the ceiling, asking questions no one can answer. Why him? Why us? Why now? My faith shakes. My hope fades. Sometimes I wonder if living without him is worth it. Sometimes I think about closing my eyes and never waking up.
But then I hear the children’s soft breathing. And I know I must go on, even if every step feels like walking through fire.
The Pain of Tomorrow
The world expects me to heal, to “move on.” But how do you move on when your very soul has been ripped apart? There will be birthdays without him, graduations without him, holidays that feel hollow. Every tomorrow is a reminder of what we lost.
The children will ask harder questions as they grow. They will want to know why. They will want answers I do not have. And each time, I will bleed again, because I cannot explain the unexplainable.
Shattered Forever
I am shattered. People see me smile, they see me walk, they see me breathe. But inside, I am broken into pieces that will never fit together again.
Charlie was not just my husband—he was my anchor, my partner, my reason. Without him, I am half a person. The world feels unsafe, unkind, unbearable. Only I know the depth of this pain. Only I understand how heavy it is to carry grief and guilt every single day.
What If?
The two words that torture me the most: what if.
What if I had begged him not to go?
What if I had driven him myself?
What if we had left the city that day?
What if we had chosen a different life?
Would he still be here? Would I still feel whole? Or was this always our fate, written in shadows I could not see? I may never know, and that is the curse I will carry to my last breath.
Straight From My Heart
This is not just grief. This is not just loss. This is being shattered in a way no one can mend. I walk with a smile for the children, but inside, I am screaming. I live for them, but a part of me died with him that day.
Maybe one day, the world will forget. But I will not. Maybe one day, the children will grow, and life will move forward. But I will always feel the emptiness beside me, the silence in the night, the ache of what should have been.
Charlie, I will carry your memory in every breath, in every tear, in every step. And though I am shattered forever, I will live on—for you, for them, for the love we shared.
But only I can explain this pain. Only I know how deep it goes. And only I will carry it until my last day.
