Grief: The Last Kiss on an Ordinary Tuesday

Maybe you know what it is to finally exhale. To reach a season where the noise quiets down, the plan starts to work, and for the first time you let yourself believe things might actually be okay. Ryan was 24 and living in Denver when he reached that place. He had married young, moved more times than he could count, and spent his whole life feeling unsettled. And then, quietly, life started to come together. One ordinary Tuesday he went to work, and at lunch he got a call that his wife had not shown up for hers. She had been killed that morning by their next door neighbor. What followed was almost twenty years Ryan spent trying to outrun that day, through grief he could not name and an addiction that nearly took his life. This is the story of how he finally stopped running, and found his way back. Ryan does not tell this story to shock anyone. He tells it because he spent two decades believing he had to carry it alone, and he wants you to know that you do not. **What You'll Hear** - What it feels like to finally feel settled after a lifetime of moving - The ordinary morning that split his life into before and after - How grief and addiction can quietly braid together - Losing years of memory, and hiding it from everyone - The lowest night that finally turned him toward help - Why telling the story out loud began to set him free **Guest Bio** Ryan Roberts is a father of four between 3 and 16 years old and a full-time network engineer. He is the author of the memoir *Fragmented: The Crossroads of Trauma, Addiction and Recovery*. He has been sober since February 16, 2018, and his mission is to help people find recovery, hopefully sooner than he did, and to meet them wherever they are on their journey. Digital Diatribe | Substack Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ sudden loss, losing a spouse young, grief and addiction, recovery from alcoholism, feeling settled, complicated grief, finding purpose again, sobriety, memory loss and grief, telling your story **You Might Also Like:** - Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life - Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking - Grief: Making Something Beautiful From What Broke Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices