I’m 28M, and lost my partner to a rare seizure disorder a few months ago on Valentine’s Day. Things have been fucking awful to be honest. Things were really hard for me even before we met. But with her I felt like we were unstoppable. She was such a wonderful and supportive partner. She was sassy, bossy, and a total fucking badass. Things just clicked so well with us. She was the love of my life and there will never been anyone else

The night before she died, she sent me a wonderful video. We would do this when we were apart and didn’t feel like FaceTiming. She told me that we were going to make it out of here. She told me that she wanted me to take all the love she had for me and use it as fuel for the fire to get out of this place.

I believed her at the time, but then she died the next morning and everything went to shit. I gave up for a while after that. I just wanted to eat the food I enjoyed and spend a little time doing stuff for myself before my time here was up.

Recently though, I’ve been seeing these little glimmers of hope here and there. The grieving process is happening but I was starting to notice little changes. A distant light at the end of the tunnel. On a whim a few weeks ago, I decided to fill out my FAFSA and see if I was able to get any financial aid to go back and finish my college degree.

I got an email this morning from the college notifying me that I had received a financial aid reward. It turns out I’m eligible for more than enough aid to go back and finish!

Early on in the grieving process, I decided that I didn’t want to go through the process of guilting myself into doing things that I think would make her proud. I didn’t want that pressure on me, you know? I couldn’t handle it. I was broken.

But today I realized that I’m going to be able to get through this. I’m going to finish my degree and get the hell out of this state like we both wanted, I’m so overwhelmed. Im not religious, so to me she’s gone. But I think if she were still here she would be really proud of me today. For not succumbing to the darkness that threatened to swallow me whole.