One Month Without Goosie — Learning to Live with the Quiet.3159

The Boy Who Loved White Milk — and the Silence He Left Behind

Silence has never been so loud.
So heavy.
So endless.

It’s been one month without him — one month since the laughter stopped echoing through the hallways, since the sound of tiny feet stopped racing down the stairs, since the morning sunlight stopped being greeted by that cheerful voice saying, “Good morning, Mommy!”

One month without my Goosie.

The strangest, most confusing, eerily quiet month of my life.

There are moments that stretch longer than they should — moments when I still turn to tell him something, only to be struck by the sharp, impossible truth that he’s not there. The air feels thicker now. The days move slower. Every sound — the creak of a door, the hum of the refrigerator — feels like an echo of what used to be.

I haven’t been able to look through my camera roll in weeks. Every photo feels like a wound — too precious to delete, too painful to open. So instead, I hold onto the most recent one I took — a picture of our little Goose Caboose, forever resting front and center on a steam engine. His eternal resting place. His forever home. I can only hope he would love it.

The Little Things That Shatter You

They don’t tell you how grief sneaks up on you — how it hides in the smallest corners of everyday life.

It’s in the grocery store aisle, when you automatically reach for the gallon of white milk, only to stop halfway. For the first time in five years, we bought a half gallon instead.

Goosie loved milk. Not chocolate milk, not strawberry milk — just plain white milk, cold from the fridge. He’d gulp it down with that little satisfied sigh afterward, like he’d just conquered the world.

He was the king of white milk.

And now, every time I open the fridge, that small half gallon stares back at me — too quiet, too still, too symbolic.

Then there’s the wall of Hot Wheels. Rows and rows of them at the store, shining under the fluorescent lights like a rainbow of memories. Every trip we made — whether he was with us or not — he always got one. It was our ritual. His collection grew faster than we realized. Sometimes he’d line them up perfectly by color; other times, he’d crash them into each other with the kind of joy only a five-year-old can have.

Now I walk past that aisle and my chest tightens. My hand reaches for one before I can stop myself — muscle memory from a time when the world still made sense.

But I don’t buy it.
Because he’s not here to open it.

The Strange New Normal

Every parent knows the chaos of having a little one. The messes. The noise. The constant chatter that fills your home like a heartbeat. You dream of peace and quiet — until it comes, and you realize it’s not peace at all.

It’s absence.

It’s the sound of life that used to be there — and isn’t anymore.

I still find myself creeping around in the mornings, careful not to make noise, as if he’s still asleep in his little bed. I still glance into the backseat before driving off, expecting to see him there — legs swinging, toy car in hand, smile as wide as the world.

When we leave the house, I still count heads. I still panic when the number doesn’t add up.

“We’re missing someone,” I whisper to myself — and then it hits me all over again.

This is our new normal.
A version of life that feels hollow in all the places he once filled.

What Grief Looks Like in Real Life

People talk about grief like it’s a wave.
They say it comes and goes. That it softens with time. That one day, it won’t hurt so much.

But they don’t tell you that sometimes, it’s not a wave — it’s the air you breathe. It’s inescapable. Constant. Heavy.

It’s waking up in the middle of the night and reaching for a child who’s no longer there.
It’s catching yourself saying his favorite phrases — those little words that belonged only to him.

It’s walking past his room and instinctively stepping quieter, because old habits don’t die even when people do.

It’s being surrounded by his things — his toys, his clothes, the little blanket he dragged everywhere — and feeling both comforted and crushed at the same time.

Some days, I leave his room exactly as it was. Other days, I can’t bear to go in at all.

There’s no rulebook for this kind of loss.
There’s only endurance.

The Things You Learn When the World Falls Apart

When Goosie was here, life was loud — full of giggles, noise, motion, milk spills, and Hot Wheels races across the kitchen floor.

He had this way of filling every moment with something beautiful. A song. A joke. A tiny act of kindness that made the day brighter. He wasn’t just a child — he was the pulse of our home.

And when that pulse stopped, so did the rhythm of everything else.

You learn strange things in grief.
You learn how long silence can last.
How a smell can transport you to a memory so vivid it takes your breath away.

How a single object — a shoe left by the door, a toothbrush on the sink — can hold an entire universe of meaning.

You learn that love doesn’t die.
It just changes shape.

The Echo of a Laugh

Sometimes I still hear him.

In the rustle of leaves outside. In the faint hum of the house settling at night. In the laughter of another child at the park.

I close my eyes and for a fleeting second, it’s as if he’s right there — laughing, running, shouting, “Mommy, look!”

But then it fades, and all that’s left is the quiet.

It’s strange how you start to crave the noise you once wished would stop. How you’d give anything to hear that little voice just one more time — even if it’s to complain about bedtime, or demand another glass of milk.

That’s the cruel part about love.
It doesn’t leave quietly.
It stays — echoing in everything.

What Comes After

People ask how I’m doing. I say I’m “okay.” It’s the simplest lie I know how to tell.

They ask if it’s getting easier. I tell them maybe. But what I mean is — it’s getting quieter.

Grief doesn’t fade. It just becomes part of you, stitched into the fabric of who you are. You learn to move with it, like a scar that tugs when it rains.

I used to be afraid of dying.
But now, I find myself unafraid.

Not because I don’t value life — but because somewhere, beyond this, I know my little boy is waiting.

And when that day comes, I imagine he’ll run to me, arms open, milk mustache and all, grinning that same mischievous grin.
He’ll say, “Mommy, where have you been?”
And I’ll finally be able to say, “I’m home.”

The Love That Stays

They say time heals. Maybe it does. But I’ve come to believe that time doesn’t heal — it teaches.

It teaches you how deep love can run.
It teaches you how to live with an ache that never leaves.
And it teaches you that even in death, love doesn’t end — it lingers, waiting quietly in every corner of the world.

Goosie may be gone, but he’s still here.
In every sunrise that feels a little too bright.
In every breeze that brushes my cheek just when I need it most.
In every quiet moment that whispers, “I’m still with you.”

Silence has never been so deafening.
But within it — if I listen closely enough — I can still hear him.

And maybe, in that silence, he’s speaking.
Not in words.
But in the eternal language of love that never leaves.