Replacing Silence with Storytelling

Silence never meant the absence of pain. But storytelling? Storytelling is proof we survived it.

Photo by Maegan Martin on Unsplash

It’s been a year.

Actually, it’s been two.

Both times have caused the calendar to clench its grip around my heart during this exact week.

The anniversary of losing Rowan, and nearly myself, is tangled in the same breath as the memory of burying Amanda, my dear friend and chosen family. And with those deep aches come stillness - the heaviness that used to sit in silence.

For a long time, that silence protected me. It wrapped itself around my grief like a cocoon, offering space to survive, to just breathe. But over time, silence became a prison, and the only way I’ve found to chip away at its walls has been through trauma processing, Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, and writing, or at it’s core - storytelling.

Storytelling, for me, isn’t just writing.

It’s witnessing.

It’s honoring the things that happened, the people who mattered, the pain that changed me, and the moments that nearly broke me.

It’s how I make sense of things that otherwise feel unbearable.

Last year, I nearly died.

From a pregnancy I was told could never happen.

From a baby that implanted in the wrong place.

From blood loss that almost emptied me entirely.

And I didn’t just lose a baby that night. I lost a fallopian tube. I lost the belief that my body might ever feel safe again. I lost the version of myself who could still hope recklessly. And then, I lost my voice, for what felt like a really long time.

Because trauma is a thief.

And silence?

Sometimes it feels like the only way to protect what’s left.

But silence never really saved me.

Speaking has. Writing has. Telling the truth has.

The truth is: I miss Amanda every single day. She was light and laughter and vulnerability in a world that often demands masks. Losing her two years ago was a different kind of earthquake - one that left cracks in the foundation of how I understand friendship, love, strength, motherhood, grace, grief, gratitude, and the fragility of time.

And Rowan…

Rowan is the name I whisper when the world is quiet. When my daughter sleeps, and I let myself wonder what it would have been like to raise them both. When I think about the bedroom floor and the ambulance and the panic in my husband’s voice. When I remember that I am still here - barely, but also boldly .

Today, I write because I refuse to let silence win.

Replacing silence with storytelling doesn’t erase the pain - it alchemizes it. It allows me to breathe, to honor, to connect.

It gives others permission to say me too.

I tell stories to remember.

I tell stories to resist the gaslighting of grief.

I tell stories because these losses live in my bones, and letting them out, piece by piece, makes room for something else. Not joy, not yet. But truth. Connection. Healing.

If you’re still silent, I see you.

If your pain is too fresh to hold in your hands, I will hold it with you until you’re ready.

And if and when that moment comes,I’ll be here to say:

Storytelling can set you free.

Here’s to the memories that shaped us.

Here’s to the ones we loved, and lost.

Here’s to finding our voices, over and over again.

Because silence never meant the absence of pain.

But storytelling?

Storytelling is proof we survived it.

I’d love to hear your story too.

Whether you leave it in the comments, send it in a message, or just whisper it out loud into the universe, know this:

You are not alone. Your story matters.

And you are always, always welcome here.