My home with Thomas. I miss him. I miss that home. But when someone dies, you need to move forward and build life differently. The first series of questions come. One is
what do I want my life to be like now?

For me it was changing it up. You can’t feel guilty for living, if that is what it is for people. I am not sure. I have heard people say so. I do not believe I leaned that way, if I did, I did not acknowledge it. I have spent my life with the intent of embracing life! I think a lot about what it means live well. I think a lot about what it means to be human, and about the relationships we find ourselves in; the responsibilities there are within relationships. I see relationships as gardens we tend, the more attention we give them the more beautiful they are. I now think about aging. LOL, even though my mind is young. The mind evolves. We evolve according to what we understand.

What I came to understand about Tom’s death was that I had been very loved. Over the years I have come to believe death is not a final thing, it is birth to rebirth, the soul leaves the body for what ever there is next. My mother in law had an out of body experience and she told of her experience, as have others I have met. When she died she rallied as if she were well, and with much aliveness she said, “Alright! Let’s Go! And this was said with excitement!” An excitement, and words I cannot forget. Thomas looked upward just as she had. There is peace in being there for her death, and in his. I held him, I told him I loved him. He was now free of his body, of Pulmonary Fibrosis. His heat simply stopped rather than the death being totally from the Pulmonary Fibrosis. His death was a better death this way, Covid was rampant and I would not have been able to be with him if he had gone in the hospital. His death would have been alone.

If I stayed caught up in this deep sadness I knew I would not move forward. Thomas would not have liked that but I needed to move forward for myself. We loved one another deeply and within our relationship we had allowed each other the right to be all of who we were. We would say “One to be two, two to be one!” That is what is needed. I had to untangle from my love, my dearest Thomas because we were so connected. That was something I had to process. And I did so I can become all I might be.

Now, I am to overcome someone else’s reality. That’s hard but it isn’t impossible. I am finding the lay of the land. I have a lot to offer the world and so it’s time to do it! Memories were made, and so are new memories.

Life is worth living, despite what happens around us. How you change things up is by being all you can become. By loving others as yourself and doing unto them as you would want done to you. Despite their response to you, do this for yourself and those who draw close to you. Make your own tribe when others are not there for you.

Pejj Nunes 3/28/2026