Losing Him: The Life I Never Planned to Live

By Carrie Hoffman | The Stories We Carry | Willis Lives On, Inc.

There are moments in life that divide everything into a before and an after.

For me, that moment came on May 5, 2026.

The day I lost my husband, Kevin.

But before I tell you about losing him, I want you to understand something.

Kevin was so much more than the way his life ended.

He was my husband. My partner. My best friend. The man I laughed with, argued with, dreamed with, and planned to grow old beside.

He was the man who built things with his hands because he wanted to make our house a home. The kitchen table and benches where our family could gather. The flower boxes on the porch. The greenhouse. The little projects that weren’t always so little, because when Kevin had an idea, he usually found a way to make it happen.

He loved being outdoors. Hunting, fishing, cooking on the grill, and spending time with the people he loved.

He had these beautiful crystal-blue eyes. A laugh I can still hear in my head. Hands I knew so well. A presence that filled spaces I never imagined would one day feel so empty.

And he was mine.

Not in the sense that I owned him, but in the sense that we had chosen each other. We had made promises. We had built a life together.

On October 2, 2021, I married Kevin, believing we had a lifetime ahead of us.

I didn’t know our lifetime together would be so short.

The Day Everything Changed

On May 5, 2026, I found my husband.

There are things about that day that I will carry for the rest of my life. Images, emotions, questions, and moments that don’t simply disappear because the calendar keeps moving forward.

I won’t share every detail here. Some parts of that day are still incredibly difficult to put into words, and some parts may always remain mine to carry privately.

But I will tell you this.

Nothing prepares you for finding the person you love gone.

Nothing prepares you for the realization that the person you were supposed to share tomorrow with will never see another tomorrow.

There is no instruction manual for what happens next.

No one tells you how to walk back into a home filled with memories. How to look at his belongings. How to see his clothes, his tools, his handwriting, or the things he was working on and accept that he isn’t coming back to finish them.

No one tells you how to explain something you can barely comprehend yourself.

And no one prepares you for the silence.

Not just the silence in the house.

The silence where his voice used to be.

Losing Him Didn’t End on May 5

One of the things I’ve learned about grief is that losing someone doesn’t happen only once.

I lost Kevin on May 5.

But in so many ways, I keep losing him.

I lose him when something happens and he’s the first person I want to tell.

I lose him when I hear a song he loved.

I lose him when I look at something he built and remember his hands working on it.

I lose him when I have a difficult day and all I want is to hear him tell me we’re going to figure it out.

I lose him in the ordinary moments that nobody else sees.

And sometimes those moments hurt more than the big ones.

Because it’s not always the anniversaries, holidays, or milestones that bring me to my knees.

Sometimes it’s an Alan Jackson song.

Sometimes it’s walking into a room.

Sometimes it’s doing something on my computer and realizing how badly I wish he were sitting beside me.

Sometimes it’s simply waking up and remembering that this is still my life.

That he’s still gone.

And that I have to figure out how to live another day without him.

The Future We Were Supposed to Have

When you marry someone, you don’t just fall in love with who they are today.

You fall in love with the future you imagine together.

The places you’ll go. The memories you’ll make. The years you’ll grow older. The ordinary evenings. The holidays. The grandchildren. The conversations you haven’t had yet.

Kevin and I had plans.

We had dreams.

We had a future that, in my mind, belonged to both of us.

And when he died, I didn’t just lose my husband.

I lost the future I thought we were going to share.

That is a kind of grief I struggle to explain.

Because how do you mourn memories that never had the chance to happen?

How do you grieve the years you were supposed to have?

How do you accept that the person who was supposed to stand beside you through the rest of your life is now someone you have to carry in your heart instead?

I don’t have those answers.

I’m still trying to figure them out.

The Questions That Remain

Losing someone to suicide carries a kind of heartbreak that can be difficult to describe.

There is the grief of losing the person you love.

And then there are the questions.

The things you replay.

The conversations you revisit.

The moments you wonder about.

The signs you question whether you missed.

The endless thoughts about what you might have said, what you might have done, or whether something could have changed the outcome.

I have asked myself questions I may never have answers to.

And I have learned that loving someone deeply does not mean you always know the depth of what they’re carrying inside.

That is one of the hardest truths I’ve had to face.

Because I loved Kevin.

I love Kevin.

And I wish more than anything that love alone could have been enough to keep him here.

But mental health struggles are not always visible. People can be loved, surrounded by family, capable, strong, and still be suffering in ways others cannot fully see.

I wish Kevin were here to tell his own story.

I wish I could ask him the questions that live inside me.

More than anything, I wish I could hold his hand one more time.

The Life That Keeps Moving

Something else nobody prepares you for is how the rest of the world continues.

Bills still arrive.

Children still need you.

Work still exists.

Responsibilities don’t disappear.

Decisions still have to be made.

And somehow, you’re expected to function while carrying a heartbreak that has changed nearly everything about your life.

There have been days when I’ve felt strong.

Days when I’ve managed to accomplish things I never imagined I would have the strength to do.

And there have been days when simply getting through the day has felt like an accomplishment.

I’ve cried in places I never expected to cry.

I’ve gotten angry.

I’ve felt overwhelmed.

I’ve laughed and then felt the ache of wishing Kevin were there to laugh with me.

I’ve discovered that grief isn’t one emotion.

It’s love, sadness, anger, longing, exhaustion, confusion, and sometimes even moments of joy, all existing together.

And I’ve learned that having a good day doesn’t mean I miss him any less.

Just as having a terrible day doesn’t mean I’m not trying.

I’m learning to live a life I never planned to live.

Not because I wanted this life.

But because it’s the life I’m here to live now.

Carrying His Love Forward

People sometimes talk about moving on after loss.

I don’t think of it that way.

I don’t want to move on from Kevin.

I want to move forward carrying him with me.

There’s a difference.

Moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting him.

It doesn’t mean replacing him.

It doesn’t mean that the love we shared somehow belongs only to the past.

It means finding ways to continue living while honoring a love that remains part of who I am.

That love is woven into my everyday life.

It’s in our memories.

It’s in the things he built.

It’s in the people he loved.

It’s in the stories I tell.

It’s in the moments when I still find myself talking to him, even though he isn’t physically here to answer.

And it’s in the foundation that now carries his name.

Why Willis Lives On Exists

Willis Lives On was born because I lost Kevin.

But it exists for reasons much bigger than our story alone.

It exists for the person who is struggling in silence, believing they have to carry everything themselves.

It exists for the person who looks strong on the outside but is fighting a battle nobody else knows about.

It exists for the families who have lost someone to suicide and are trying to understand how their lives changed so completely.

It exists for the people who want to say their loved one’s name without feeling like they’re making someone uncomfortable.

It exists because stories matter.

Because conversations matter.

Because reaching out matters.

And because I believe we need to do a better job of being there for people on both sides of suicide.

Before a life is lost.

And after a loss has changed the lives of everyone left behind.

I cannot change what happened to Kevin.

I cannot go back to May 5 and rewrite our story.

And I cannot pretend that building something meaningful from my grief makes losing him any easier.

It doesn’t.

I would give anything to have my husband back.

But if sharing our story helps one person feel less alone, encourages one difficult conversation, or reminds someone that their life matters, then I want to keep telling it.

Not because I have all the answers.

But because I know what it feels like to wish there had been a different ending.

This Is Not the End of His Story

Kevin’s life was not defined by one day.

It was defined by the years he lived, the people he loved, the memories he created, and the countless ways he left his mark on this world.

I don’t want people to remember only how he died.

I want them to know how he lived.

I want them to know the man with the crystal-blue eyes, the talented hands, the love for the outdoors, and the laugh that could make me smile.

I want them to know the husband I loved.

The man I still love.

And I want other families to know that their loved ones deserve to be remembered for their lives, too.

This is why we tell the stories we carry.

Because the people we love are more than the circumstances of their deaths.

Because grief deserves a voice.

Because silence should never be the only place our pain lives.

And because love doesn’t end when a life does.

I lost Kevin on May 5, 2026.

But I will love him for the rest of my life.

And as long as I have a voice, I will keep telling his story.

Because his life mattered. His love mattered. And his legacy lives on.

Willis Lives On, Inc.

Hope • Healing • Legacy

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Author’s Note: This story reflects my personal experience of love, suicide loss, and grief. I share it not as a mental health professional, but as a wife navigating life after losing her husband. Willis Lives On shares lived experiences, awareness, and resources; our stories are not a substitute for professional mental health care. If you or someone you love is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988 in the United States for support.