07/30/2026
Andy is home. But this weekend held a fear worth talking about.
Here is something we say often in this office, and something this family just lived.
Loss is not only about losing a person. Sometimes the hardest grief is grieving who you used to be.
Sitting in that hospital, the fear that surfaced was not really about dying. It was about living as someone you do not recognize. Andy is a mountain biker. A fisherman. The guy on the motocross track. The one who runs alone. The things he loves are the things he does on his own terms, under his own power. So when your body does something you did not agree to, and suddenly you have to lean on everyone around you, you can start to mourn the version of yourself you always counted on.
That grief is real. So is the anxiety under it, the loss of control, the not knowing what comes next. If you have ever faced a diagnosis, an injury, an ending you did not choose, you know this feeling. It is not dramatic. It is human.
We say it because someone reading this needs permission to name what they are carrying. You are allowed to grieve a version of your life while you fight for the next one. Both can be true.
