Letter Two – The Weight

From the series: "Letters from the Wreckage"

By: Amy Michelle Kennedy

To my fellow survivors,

Today, it feels like I’m standing in quicksand.

No matter how hard I try to move forward, I’m stuck.

I can barely lift my feet.

I am so tired of sinking.

People talk about “processing” grief like it’s a journey —

like we’re supposed to move through it in steps, one foot in front of the other.

But no one tells you what to do when your whole body feels like stone.

No one tells you how to survive the days when you can’t move —

not because you don’t want to, but because the weight won’t let you.

The missing is heavy.

The guilt is heavy.

The silence is heavy.

And some days, I feel like I’m drowning in all of it.

Maybe you’ve been there.

Maybe you’re there now.

If so, this is what I want to say to you:

Not moving is not the same as giving up.

Some days, staying still is survival.

Some days, just breathing through the heaviness is everything.

If all you did today was wake up,

If all you did was feel the weight and not disappear under it —

that is holy.

That is defiance.

That is enough.

You are not failing.

You are not behind.

You are not broken beyond repair.

You are in the wreckage.

And you are still here.

And that — even when you feel frozen, even when you feel like you’ll never stand again — matters.

I’m in it with you.

Stuck, aching, heavy.

Still here.

Still not letting go.

Not today.

I can’t stop the ache inside my chest.

And I can’t promise when it will get easier.

But I can promise I am here for each of you.

I am here with trembling hand outstretched to you.

I stand here beside you in the rubble that was once our lives.

With love,

Amy Michelle