“Grief is a grand piano sunk to the bottom of the ocean. The pressure of the deep presses down on the keys, playing a heavy, beautiful melody that nobody else can hear.”
— Treasured By The Storm

Tonight wasn’t about writing. It was about remembering.

I sat down to finish the words for my grandmother’s final farewell. I thought I was prepared. I thought I could hold it together. After all, I’ve carried pain before. I’ve survived storms before. But grief has a way of ignoring your plans.

The moment the memories began pouring onto the page, the tears followed. Quiet at first. Then steady. Then unstoppable.

Because sometimes the hardest part of saying goodbye isn’t the funeral. It’s realizing there will never be another conversation. Another laugh. Another hug. Another chance to say, “I love you.”

As the music from My Soul to Keep played softly in the background, the room felt both heavier and lighter at the same time. Heavy with loss. Light with love.

I felt like that submerged piano, drowning under the surface of an ocean of memories, playing a heavy melody that nobody else can hear. The water presses down on every single key, and the weight is too much to carry alone.

But right there in the deep water, my spouse didn’t swim away. They didn’t tell me to come back to the surface before I was ready. They just submerged themselves right along with me.

The Submerged Melody

The keys are cold beneath the wave,
A song of love that no one saved.
The salt water fills the grand display,
As notes of sorrow float away.

You do not speak, you do not mend,
The broken lines where stories end.
You dive beneath the roaring crest,
To anchor down against my chest.

A silent watch, a quiet hand,
Upon a shore of shifting sand.
For love is not a silver tongue,
It’s staying when the song is sung.

And somewhere between the tears and the silence, I realized something many people never talk about: Sometimes healing isn’t found in being strong. Sometimes healing is found in being held.

Not everyone is blessed with a spouse willing to sit beside them while they break. Someone who doesn’t rush the tears. Someone who doesn’t offer empty clichés. Someone who simply stays.

They stay when the memories hurt. They stay when the words won’t come. They stay when grief empties the room of oxygen and submerges the soul in deep water.

There is a sacred kind of love that doesn’t try to fix the pain. It simply refuses to let you carry it alone. Tonight reminded me that grief may arrive as a storm, but a devoted partner arrives as shelter. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just present. And sometimes presence is the greatest gift one human being can offer another.

The people who hold your hand while your heart is breaking deserve flowers, too. Not because they removed the pain, but because they stayed long enough to help you survive it while you play your heaviest songs.

Tonight, my tears were real. My grief was real. But so was the love sitting beside it. And for that, I am grateful.

“Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.” — Psalm 42:7

“Some people help you smile. Others help you survive. Never confuse the two.”

Treasured By The Storm
Soul Drop After Dark
Truth After Midnight. Healing Before Dawn.
One World. One People. Many Stories. One Purpose.